For Want of a Nail
by S. Faith
Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring. A bit of intrigue and mystery in Grafton Underwood. Movie universe with OCs from previous stories.
1. Part 1 of 4

**For Want of a Nail **

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 26,161 (Part 1: 6,587)

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring…

Disclaimer: They're still not my characters. They are still my words.

Notes: The incident that launches this story was decided on back in January, long before Renée Z actually pulled a similar stunt with a pair of hot pink stilettos. I _swear_. It was inspired by my poor roommate tearing a calf muscle doing same.

This is sort of a continuation of the universe begun in several previous stories: "In Sickness And...", "The Scandal", "The Perfect Match", and even "The Prodigal Son". If you haven't read these, you shouldn't be too lost, though if you're feeling a bit lost, that would be why.

* * *

_Friday_

It was like losing the kingdom for want of a nail, or at least the want of a decently-made shoe with a good, well-fastened heel that didn't collapse whilst dashing into a zebra crossing to make the light. The end result of the snapping of said heel was a rather acrobatic tumble across two lanes of traffic, a painful landing, much fuss and bother and a ride in an ambulance.

While mindful of the worry she'd caused Mark in his getting a call to alert him that his wife was in Accident & Emergency, certainly Bridget didn't mind the attention he gave to her after she'd been released with a cast on her fractured forearm, a lovely hairline crack in her ulna.

This little accident came at a great cost, though: Mark insisted they postpone their summer holiday abroad and instead spend a couple of weeks at his parents' place in the country, to give her time away from real life to recover. Reluctantly she had to admit that the thought of touring the continent whilst on opiates for the pain was less than ideal, and so agreed to the stay.

"It's close enough to the city," he'd said, "that if we need we can take you to the doctor."

Not so much a kingdom as a dream holiday lost, but a loss nonetheless. She was thankful at least that she liked the Darcys, and they liked her.

"How are you feeling?" came Mark's voice into the haze of her slumber. She realised they were no longer moving, that they must have arrived at his parents'.

"Sorry?" she said, coming into full wakefulness.

"How's your arm?"

She looked down to the cast. "Still broken." She was thankful at least that it was her left arm; she could at least still, say, write in her diary.

He chuckled, leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry. Didn't want to wake you, but we're here."

"I gathered."

He released his seatbelt, then did the same for her. "Are you in need of more painkillers?"

"I am, but I'd rather have a glass of wine when we get inside."

He smirked. "Then by all means, let's get you inside."

They were greeted by Elaine Darcy, who pecked an affectionate kiss on Bridget's cheek then gingerly embraced her daughter-in-law. "I'm so sorry about your arm," said Elaine, "but Greece's loss is our gain."

"And France, and Italy," Bridget lamented. "It would have been more worth it if I'd had a better story to tell when people ask how I broke it."

"What, cartwheels across Oxford Street isn't a good enough story?" joked Mark. At the undoubted dirty look she gave to him in return, he immediately offered apologetically, "Let me get you a glass of wine, darling." He set down their bags and departed for the kitchen.

As they took seats in the front sitting room, Bridget said, "I'm so sorry we're imposing upon you on such short notice."

"Never you mind that," said Elaine. "You're family, and there's always room for family regardless of the notice. Besides, we're going to put you in the northern big room, so you'll have a little extra privacy, plus it stays relatively dark all day in case you find you need a nap."

A voice called from the foyer: "Elaine? Mark? Where am I putting the bags from the car?" It was Mark's father.

"Northern side, Malcolm," she called. "The big suite. Grab the other bags in the foyer too, if you can."

"Right. Got them." The women heard the footsteps retreating.

"If there's anything at all that you need, you just let us know," said Elaine, reaching over to pat Bridget's knee. "Oh! What's this writing on your cast?"

Bridget was certain she flushed crimson. Damn that Tom for making crude (yet blessedly abstract) drawings on her cast, his suggestion for the best shagging positions while her arm was recovering. "Oh, just a friend of mine doodling."

Thank God, His cherubim, seraphim and all assorted heavenly creatures above that Mark returned at that moment with a large wineglass brimming to the top with pale gold Chardonnay. "Thank you," she said desperately, trying not to gulp the thing down in all one swallow.

Malcolm appeared in the doorway, flush from his excursion up and down the stairs, to and from the room that would be theirs during their stay. "Mark, son," he said in greeting. "Bridget my dear. How are you? How's that arm?"

"I'm fine," she said, smiling. "Doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did at first."

"Good to hear. Have you all settled in upstairs, Mark knows the room. If you'd like to have a lie-down—well, I hardly need to say so, but make yourself at home."

She smiled, feeling the effect of the wine bloom through her body. "Thank you," she said. "I think I'd like that very much."

As Bridget got to her feet with Mark's unneeded but welcome assistance, Elaine said, "Now, I had completely forgotten that we've arranged to have supper with the Enderbys tonight, but not to worry, I've got something in the works for the two of you to eat later."

"Thank you, Mother."

"Don't exactly have pizza delivery in these parts, and you shouldn't have to cook for yourselves while you're here," added Malcolm.

She chuckled, feeling decidedly more squiffy after getting to her feet. "Thank you." For all of his bluster at times, Mark's father was very much a teddy bear. _Hm_, she thought with amusement; _like father, like son_.

As they scaled the stairs, Mark held his arm quite firmly about her waist. "Mark," she said, "I've broken my arm, not my leg. I'm perfectly capable of climbing the stairs on my own."

"I know," said Mark, "but you just had wine for the first time in two weeks."

As if the universe was mocking her, her foot went unsteady under her at that very moment and she listed to the side, right into him.

"As I was say—"

"Hush," she said. She heard him chuckle.

Mark knew that the room his mother had put them in was one that was not often used, in the northern end of the house that they usually kept closed in the winter months. He was very much looking forward to seeing Bridget's reaction to it. It was probably as large as the bulk of her old London flat.

Just as he suspected, her face fell as he opened the door and she saw the ivory and gold decorated bedroom, complete with four-poster bed, _en suite_ bathroom and private balcony. "Mark, I know better than to think your parents would ever put us up in tatty accommodations," she said, "but this room… I'm speechless."

He couldn't help but chuckle.

"How come we haven't seen this room before?"

He explained, and she smirked. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"It's just a little weird to have been married into a family whose house has, you know, _wings_."

He laughed, pulling her close to him, feeling the plaster of her cast brush against his dress shirt as she embraced him in return. "Don't know if I've mentioned this lately," he said low into her ear, still grinning, "but I do so love you."

"You might have done," she said, tightening her embrace. "With the pills and all, though, the last two weeks have been a blur."

"Well. I'm happy to repeat myself on account of your fuzzy memory." He briefly kissed her, then pulled away to turn down the bed.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"You said you wanted to nap," he said, befuddled.

"Oh, Mark," she said, shaking her head. "Never, ever break an embrace to turn down a bed, silly man." She grinned. "Have I taught you nothing?"

"On the contrary," he said. "You've taught me plenty. But you should rest."

"Lie with me?" she asked brightly. "I always sleep better if I know you're there."

He could hardly refuse, not that he wanted to. "Of course."

He helped her out of her trousers and shirt before divesting himself of his own. It was far more comfortable for her to sleep on her right side with the cast on her left arm, so he slipped in behind her to spoon up to her back. He pulled the covers up over them then slipped his arm around her waist.

She was sleeping, softly snoring, within minutes. He placed a kiss against the back of her head, and she snuggled further into him.

He didn't think he would actually be able to sleep but before he knew it, he was opening his eyes to see through the window that the sky had begun to darken. He stirred, realising that neither of them had even moved. His stirring caused Bridget to wake too.

"Is it morning?" she said muzzily.

"No, darling, it's evening."

"Oh, right." She stretched and turned over, deftly avoiding hitting him with her encased arm, to give him a kiss. "That was a lovely nap."

"It was. Slept like a rock."

"Me too." She raised the fingers of her right hand and combed them through his hair. "What do you suppose your mum has fixed for us?"

"Knowing her, something light and summery that doesn't require reheating."

"Mmm. So that means we could be a little lazy and lay here a little while longer."

"Well, I don't know for certain. Plus, I'm pretty hungry." He felt his stomach growl as if in agreement.

She chuckled. "All right, all right. Help me get dressed and we can go exploring in the kitchen." She pushed herself away to sit up and as she did so, she made a slightly pained sound. Mark knew what that meant; hastily he located her toiletries bag and the little cylinder filled with high-quality pain pills.

"Just a half," she called to him, cradling her left arm close to her body with her right. "You don't want to have to hold me down to this earth by a tether the rest of the night."

He chuckled, remembering how loopy she'd been the first few days after her accident when she'd needed to take a full pill. He snapped the white oval pill in half then palmed it, figuring she could take it with dinner.

When they got down to the kitchen, Mark found two covered plates in the enormous stainless steel refrigerator (he noticed Bridget smirking but trying desperately to hide it), each with a generous (and delicious-looking) Caesar salad with strips of chicken and mounds of fresh grated parmesan, as well as two heaping bowls of fresh berries. He handed her the half-pill then said, "Have a seat at the table. I'll bring it over."

There was a note tented on the counter in what he recognised as his mother's hand: "Housekeeper has been dismissed for the evening and she is off to town until Monday. Enjoy dinner… and the silence." He folded it into quarters and set it down.

"Is that from your mum?" asked Bridget from the table.

He nodded as he carried the plates over, then went back for utensils, then glasses of water. "Seems we have the house to ourselves," he said.

"Oh. Lovely."

As they ate, Mark said, "We could take a walk after dinner if you like, enjoy the fresh country air."

"I'd love that."

By the time they'd finished eating their salads and fruit she was beginning to look a little unfocused. He wondered if the walk was still such a good idea, and suggested they instead spend some time indoors.

"Oh, no, I'll be fine," she said, waving her right hand dismissively. "Miracle of modern chemistry. I feel great."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said.

They took an abbreviated turn around the back park. The sun was very low on the horizon and casting golden hues upon the foliage. The air was fresh and while cooler than the temperature during the day, it was still warm enough to enjoy the outdoors in only a dress shirt.

After reaching the back patio once again, they paused to look at the expanse of the back park, he with his arm around her waist. She slipped her own around his—the cast-free arm—and held him tightly. He slipped into contemplation as his gaze skimmed across the horizon, over the tops of the tallest trees, to where birds were circling and the clouds were sparse and tinged with pink. There was a time he dreaded what the future would bring; in the past, the thought of inheriting this property seemed more of a burden than a joy, mostly at the prospect of living here alone in this massive house. Now, though, the prospect of spending his golden years here was decidedly brighter knowing he'd be doing so with his dear wife.

"I love it out here," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "It's so beautiful."

He looked down and found she was looking up to him at the same time, the last rays of sun finding the highlights of her hair, her blue eyes radiantly shining and a smile playing upon her lips. "Yes, it is," he said quietly. He turned, steering her towards the house, and as they walked he pressed a kiss into her silken hair. It still smelled of her floral shampoo. "Shall we head back up to our room?" he asked, slipping his hand down over her hip.

"Hm, don't know, not tired yet. I was thinking I might like to watch a little telly. Your parents do have one, don't they?"

Perhaps the opiates were clouding her ability to pick up on his signal that sleeping was not what he had in mind. Absentmindedly he said, "Yes, of course they do."

"Ooh, take me there," she said, squeezing his hip before stepping away from him.

He found that the lower rear sitting room had been converted into an entertainment room of sorts, the centerpiece of which was an enormous flat-panel television set. "Oh my stars and garters," she said. He stifled a laugh; it amused him when her usual lax verbal filters got even more so under the influence of her pain medication. "I think this is the largest telly I've ever seen in my life." She sat onto the sofa, picking up a remote control, then pushed the large red button that even he would have guessed meant 'power on'. Nothing happened. She pushed it again, then a third time, holding down as if continued pressure might make it wake up. Still nothing. "Um, Mark, do you know how to turn it on?"

It took fiddling with three different remotes before they got the thing to power on, and Bridget was like a kid in a candy store at the array of channels available to her. She located a movie she had been dying to see and bounced back into the cushions to watch; he resigned himself to a night of mindless viewing and settled in next to her, sliding his arm around her shoulders.

The movie was mostly over, the sun had set, when he felt her hand on his thigh. He turned to see she was looking at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Did you ever, you know, bring girls home?"

"What?" he asked again, at a loss.

"Bring girls home. Watch movies with them. Try to snog them on your parents' sofa."

"Wha—" he began, then realised another 'what?' would make him look like an imbecile. "No, no I didn't."

"That's a shame." She got up on her knee. "Want to know what that was like?" She then kissed him. Automatically he returned the kiss, sliding his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap.

He broke away, suddenly feeling the weight of his surroundings. "Bridget. We could just have gone upstairs as I suggested."

"Durr, Mark. I'm not _completely_ daft, you know," she said with a smirk before straddling his lap and diving upon him with a kiss again. Her left hand settled peacefully behind his neck; her right, however, had very different ideas.

His hands were well entrenched beneath her shirt and were contemplating plunging beneath the elastic waistband of her cotton trousers when he heard the unmistakable sound of hard-soled shoes on the parquet floor of the foyer. From the sound of it, they were rapidly approaching. He tried to push her away, but she seemed determined.

Suddenly there was a voice at the doorway behind them, cementing his utter mortification, causing her to stop at last: "Good to know some things haven't changed, or aren't deterred by grievous injury."

She raised her head and looked over the back of the sofa, towards the door. Even lit only by the residual light of the telly he could see her flush almost purple. She then confirmed the identity of their discoverer. "H-hello, Uncle Nick."

"I was concerned when I heard you'd broken your arm, dear child," he said. "I see however that it hasn't slowed anything down one bit. Well. It's been a very long drive. Good night." Mark heard the footsteps retreat, the door closing and latching.

"Bridget," Mark said quietly after he was certain Nick must have reached the opposite end of the house. "If you were trying to let me in on some shared cultural experience of nightmarish proportions, I think you succeeded beyond your wildest dreams."

He felt her lips brush against his cheek, and he closed his eyes. Even amidst this complete humiliation she still had a devastating effect on his self-control. "He already thinks we're shagging on the sofa. And he closed the door."

"What are you saying?" he asked feebly as she placed her mouth upon his neck, drawing the skin there gently between her teeth. He had a feeling he already knew though, and her response proved him correct:

"We might as well finish what we've started."

_Saturday_

They had been able to slip up to their room before Mark's parents returned home from dinner with Una and Geoffrey. It had been bad enough to have been caught by Nick; it would have been utter mortification to have actually had his parents discover them _in flagrante delicto_. What had seemed such a good idea the night before now seemed to be more than Bridget wanted to ponder as they prepared to head down to breakfast, though to be fair, desire had a way of clouding one's rationale. In any case, she was kind of dreading heading downstairs.

She forced brightness into her voice as they entered the kitchen: "Good morning, Uncle Nick." He was at the counter, mixing what looked to be a batter of some variety.

"Good morning, my child." As she leaned in to peck his cheek as had become her custom, he added, "By the way, should you decide to continue your… excursions, I only ask that you spare my favourite chair."

She was sure she turned as bright red as a beet, was glad that Mark's parents hadn't made it to the kitchen yet. Mark thankfully intervened. "I'll be sure to steer us clear of it. What's that you're making?"

Bridget was rather surprised at his unflappable tone, and shot him a grateful look.

Nick replied, "Belgian waffles. Picked up some fresh berries in town, and a little whipping cream."

Bridget could only comment, "Oh my Lord. I'm going to plump up something fierce while I'm here." Mark chuckled, glancing down as he started to fix their coffee.

Elaine erupted into the kitchen looking rattled, and the minute Mark saw her he dropped the teaspoon into the mug and went over to her. "Mother? What is it?"

"Oh, I—" She hesitated. "I put my foot in it last night. I'm sorry."

"What?" asked Mark worriedly.

Elaine glanced to Bridget. "Well, Bridget, your mother and father were also there at dinner, and I'm afraid I mentioned your safe arrival. I didn't know…" She broke off.

Elaine didn't need to finish. Bridget knew the rest. She hadn't told her mother that they were staying with the Darcys for the two weeks they'd be there, because she knew the reaction Pamela was likely to have. It's not like there would have been any peace and quiet staying at the Joneses, not to mention the much tighter quarters, and her mother knew it, but it wasn't as if her mother had acted rational about this in the past. "It's all right," she said. "You couldn't have known."

Mark looked confused. "Known what?"

Bridget cast her eyes down. "I didn't tell her we were staying here."

Surprisingly, he laughed. "Oh, love." He went to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders, kissing her cheek. "You should have told her but believe me, knowing your mother, I understand why you didn't."

"Hey," she said, feigning affront as she grinned.

"—As much as I love her," he added quickly. She distinctly heard Elaine chuckle.

Malcolm came in with two newspapers, setting one down on the table, open to the crossword, undoubtedly for Nick. "Morning," he said, smiling brightly. "Fine day for the fair."

"Malcolm," said Elaine darkly. "I haven't had a chance to tell them yet."

"Tell us what?" asked Bridget.

"Well, in trying to mollify your mother's hurt feelings, I… told her you'd be attending the street fair with us, and that she'd be able to see you there. I'm sorry."

"The what?" asked Mark.

"Are you sure you grew up here?" Bridget asked, amused. "That's all right," she offered to Elaine. "I'm sure we'll have a very nice time, and at least it will keep her from showing up here unannounced."

"Who wants strawberries, and who wants blueberries?" called Nick from his place at the waffle iron.

Mark had never actually been to one of the summer street fairs in Grafton Underwood, at least not that he could remember. His father had been right, though; the temperature was perfect, the sky was cerulean and peppered with dots of white downy clouds, and a lovely cool breeze passed through the cotton of his shirt and over his skin. He felt a little funny though, like a stranger in his own hometown; as they passed by small groups of people nearly every one of those groups had at least one person who had a smile and a wave for Bridget or stopped her for a short conversation. Conversely, Mark found himself at the receiving end of many a polite smile accompanied by the effort of placing him. As he introduced himself or was introduced by Bridget there were those who knew his name, either from one of his cases, or were friends of his mother's, but universally there was that undeniable furrowed-brow look of attempt at recognition.

As they strolled away from the latest conversational group, she tucked her unbroken arm through the crook of his elbow and leaned in close to him. "Are you positive you grew up here?" she asked again teasingly.

"I did go away to school fairly young," he said, his voice more defensive than he'd intended. He heard her chuckle. He decided to try to move away from the subject of himself. "So how is it that you know so many people?"

"Well, you know. Was friends with _her_ daughter, went out with _his_ son—" She looked up at him and surprised him with a giggle. "Oh, come on, Mark. That was when I was like eleven, when 'going out with' someone meant sitting at lunch with them." He wondered exactly what kind of expression had passed over his countenance.

"Bridget?" came another voice from somewhere in front of them, shaky and strained. Bridget looked towards the source and gasped.

"Oh my… Mrs Hase? Is that you?" She broke away from Mark and hopped over to a very old woman, rail thin limbs and pure silver hair, huge owlish glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, standing leaning heavily on her cane with her right hand. Gingerly she held out her arm and Bridget went to her to accept the embrace.

"I haven't seen you, my dear, in yons," said Mrs Hase. "And please, love, do call me Agnes." At that moment she seemed to notice the cast. "What happened to your arm?"

"Had a bit of an accident with a collapsing shoe heel while running, and I landed on my arm." Bridget grinned, then looked to Mark. "Agnes, this is my husband, Mark Darcy."

Agnes squinted. "Little Mark? Malcolm and Elaine's boy? My, how you've grown!" She extended her hand to him and he took it to shake it, afraid he might accidentally crush it, but she tugged forward, hinting that he was also supposed to give her a hug, which he did. Agnes was grinning almost wickedly when he stepped back again. "Oh, it isn't every day that a woman my age gets into the arms of a big, strong handsome man such as yourself, Mark. Nicely done, my dear," she said, turning back to Bridget. "Never really thought Theodore was good enough for you." She raised her left hand and caressed Bridget's cheek; Mark swore he saw Bridget flinch for a split second before her face became a picture of confusion, staring at the woman's hand. When Bridget spoke, she sounded a little discombobulated.

"Thank you, Agnes. Uh. How is Ted—er, Theodore?"

Agnes looked away. "Oh, he breaks my heart. Didn't become a doctor like I always thought he should have done. He came to visit last month but cut his visit short, disappeared without hardly a 'by your leave'—"

Bridget seemed to realise it was best at this point to steer the subject clear of Theodore, and quickly said, "I'm sorry to hear that. It was lovely to see you again, Agnes. Maybe I can drop by for tea during our stay here? We're here for two weeks."

The old woman brightened considerably. "Oh, Bridget, you're an angel. Always liked you best of all of Theodore's girls. I would love for you to stop by—don't bother with formalities, come when you like. I do get rather lonely. And Mark, you're welcome too."

"Thank you," he said politely. "It was very nice to meet you."

Agnes smiled. "A gentleman for sure," she said, more to herself than to either of them. "You two have a lovely day, enjoy the fair." She smiled, then began to walk off with a surprisingly rapid cadence given the cane and her age.

Bridget said nothing for many moments as they continued to stroll, not even after Mark took her hand into his own. "Bridget," he asked at last. "What's the matter?"

"That woman has had the most god-awful Victorian-era ring for as long as I've known her," she said, seemingly off-subject. "And every time I saw her she would pat my face affectionately with her left hand as she just did, and that bloody ring had an edge that would scratch against my face."

"Did it not scratch you this time?"

"It didn't, because she wasn't wearing it."

Mark looked to her. "So she wasn't wearing it."

"No, you don't understand. Her late husband Edward gave her that ring as a wedding present and she has never once removed it in the time that I've known her. She wouldn't take it off, even when I asked her to take a closer look at it."

"People change, Bridget," he said, rather pointedly.

"And Ted—Theodore—coming and leaving so quickly? Oh, Mark. I have to wonder."

He was afraid to ask. "Wonder what?"

"If he stole it."

He squeezed her hand—he loved her active imagination but sometimes it was a bit much to take. "I'm sure she just has taken to leaving it off because of her arthritis. Besides. I think she'd have done something about it had her son—"

Bridget interrupted: "_Grand_son. Ted's parents would be as old as mine if they were alive, thank you very much."

Mark chuckled, then corrected, "—Her grandson stolen her prized possession of a ring. Darling, I'm sure she has just locked it away for safe keeping. Look, here's a candy stand. Would you like raspberry or orange chocolate truffles?"

It was a risk, attempting to distract her with chocolate, but a risk he was willing to take; she was going to either enthusiastically choose truffles, or scold him for attempting to so transparently get her off the subject. Thankfully it was the former. "Ooh, both please. I love these."

He bought her a little box of four very decadent-looking truffles with cocoa dusted over the top. She fished one out and took a bite. "Oh. The best, anywhere. Thank you." She surprised him with a quick kiss and if not for their location he might have insisted on a longer one; something about the chocolate flavour of her lips was very enticing.

"Bridget!" came another, more staccato voice, this one instantly recognisable as Pam Jones'. Mark turned to the side to see Bridget's mother beaming a smile. "You two, always so sweet together; I knew it was meant to be—though I am very cross, _very cross_, that you didn't tell me you were staying here in Grafton Underwood for your holiday!" she said, her tone changing from sweetness and light to peeved and petulant in an instant. Bringing up the rear was Bridget's dad, smiling sheepishly. "Daddy says he knew! Now why would you tell Daddy and not me?"

_I can't imagine_, Mark thought with some amusement, trying very hard not to roll his eyes or otherwise look disrespectful.

"I'm sorry, Mum; I was sure I had," she said, shooting what he guessed was a conspiratorial look to her father. "The pain meds… sometimes I don't know if I'm coming or going."

This seemed to ameliorate her hurt feelings. "Well, darling, no real harm done, though you could have just as easily stayed with us," she said a slight edge of resentment to her voice.

"Mum, the Darcys have—"

"I had already asked my mother and secured the arrangements before I told Bridget," he interrupted his wife to say before she could point out the size difference in the houses of their respective parents.

She didn't look completely satisfied, but Pam Jones seemed to forgive Mark a lot more easily than she forgave her own daughter, so he was willing to step in and take the proverbial bullet with his little white lies. "Well, I'm sure you'll come by for dinner once or twice, hm?"

"If Bridget's up to it," said Mark. "She still has a good deal of pain, some days."

The look that Bridget turned upon him was so filled with love and adoration he had to fight grinning back in return. "Yes, yes," she said quickly. "Today's a good day, but I can feel the pain med wearing off. I'm sure we'll have to go soon. This is the most up-and-around I've done since the tumble-over." As if to underscore her fatigue, she sighed heavily.

Her mother turned instantly (and surprisingly) maternal. "Poor darling. Yes, of course, get on back to your room and have a lie down. Mark, take her back, will you?"

"Of course," he said absently, suddenly taken with the idea of feeding her more chocolate.

Her father came forward to peck her cheek. "See you later, my dear," he said, before gathering his wife around the waist and herding her towards a group containing other Grafton Underwood hens. When he heard one of them call out for Bridget's mother, Mark knew they were in the clear.

"I'm glad we brought separate cars," said Bridget once the flock of hens was well out of earshot, "because my obligation to my mother has been satisfied, and truffles aside, I think I have had quite enough of the street fair." She smiled wanly up to him. He realised that the fatigue must have been real, and he slid his arm around her shoulder and directed her back to the car.

They passed Elaine on their way back to the car, who simply nodded and smiled, implicitly understanding they were heading back to the house.

Once there, they headed straight up for their room, because Bridget seemed tired enough that a lie down was sure to follow. When she put the other half of that truffle into her mouth though, all was lost; he could not help but kiss her afterwards, which inevitably led to a delay in napping.

When Bridget awoke from her nap, she smiled at the memory of the lovely shag they'd just had, then frowned. Had the street fair been a dream? She glanced to the nightstand where the little white paper bag containing three truffles sat, its top hanging open like a gawking mouth, so no, she really had been to the fair, really had seen Agnes, really had not been raked across the face by her ugly, ancient ring. Mark had done well to distract her from her thoughts, but she could not help feeling that something was amiss.

Thinking of Mark, she realised he was not beside her, but as the light was on in the loo she figured he'd be back momentarily. She laid back down on the pillow just as the door to the bathroom swung open again. "Hello, sleepyhead," he said. "Have a nice nap?"

"Mmm. Yes. Didn't guess you were _that_ fond of chocolate," she said, smirking.

He chuckled.

Just after dinner Nick invited Mark and his wife to join him on the back patio for a shot of scotch, and he accepted on their behalf, even though Bridget had taken another full painkiller and couldn't join in a drink (as much as she tried to wheedle a glass of Chardonnay out of him).

Under the darkening sky, Nick leaned on the railing with his tumbler in his hand and asked, "Hope you had a pleasant time today at the street fair."

Mark was similarly leaning with his own tumbler, staring out across the landscape, the evening stars just starting to make their appearance. "We did."

"Mark bought me chocolate," offered Bridget from Mark's other side, her arm around his waist.

Mark heard Nick chuckle. Bridget leaned into Mark and before he knew it she had swung her legs up and over the railing to sit on the edge of it.

"Bridget," Mark said dangerously, "get down."

"I'm fine, I'm steadier sitting here anyway, and I've got you to lean on."

Rather than pull her bodily down, he slipped his left arm around her waist.

"And oh! I saw Agnes Hase!"

Inwardly, Mark groaned.

"Agnes?" asked Nick. "Edward's widow? I hadn't realised she was still, um, with us," he finished tactfully.

"Yes, and you know what? Her ring's gone."

Mark glanced to Nick, hoping without words to discourage him. It didn't work. Defeated, Mark lifted his scotch glass and downed the shot, hoping to fortify himself against the assault to follow, then handed the glass to Nick to set it down on the empty area of railing.

"Ring? Are you talking of that giant Victorian monstrosity she wore everywhere?"

"Yes!" she said enthusiastically. "I knew I wasn't mad. It's gone."

"Did she tell you she'd been mugged?"

"Well, no."

Nick looked to Mark, a wry smile twisting his lips. He knew what that meant: he was humouring her.

"She has been a widow for a lot of years, Bridget."

Bridget launched into a similar diatribe to the one he'd heard earlier. "She never, ever took it off," Bridget insisted, leaning forward for a better view of Nick. Mark clenched his arm more tightly around her, adrenaline shooting through his system, attempting to tug her back. She resisted. "Never. I'm really worried that it's gone."

"There are many plausible reasons that her ring would be off of her finger. Maybe she's developed bad arthritis. Maybe she's afraid she'll lose it and decided to put it into storage. She is rather old, you know."

"That is exactly what I said. Bridget, get down from the railing."

"No," she said rather peevishly. "I don't care how many years Edward has been dead. She. Did. Not. Take. It. Off. _Ever_."

"You're being silly," said Nick.

"_Silly?_" she said shrilly. "If she loved Edward like I love Mark, she'd never take it off. I know I won't after Mark's gone, even if I did decide to—" She stopped speaking quite abruptly.

"What?" Nick asked amusedly.

Mark knew, even without the benefit of full light, that she had turned bright crimson.

"—find a shag-mate," she finished, then clarified, presumably for Nick's sake, "Take a… lover."

Mark stared at her, his mouth agape, momentarily loosening his hold, and she wobbled as she sat. He instantly caught her. Nick, however, laughed out loud.

"Well, I don't think I could go on as long as old Agnes has without sex," she said in a voice she probably thought was confidential. "I love you, Mark, but I _am_ only human."

To Mark's further dismay, he heard his mother's voice behind them advise her own opinion: "I'm with you, Bridget."

Bridget went silent. "Was that your mum?" she asked Mark.

"Yes it was."

"Did I say that really loudly?"

"Yes you did."

Mark caught a glimpse of Nick, of his mother, both with huge grins on their faces.

She was silent again for many moments. "Can you help me down?"

Elaine appeared to Bridget's left. "Don't leave on my account, dear. What was that about Agnes?"

"Oh!" Embarrassment apparently forgotten, she turned to face Elaine. Mark was thankful he had tightened his grip on his wife's waist again. "Agnes! Did you see her? Did you notice her ring was missing?"

"Not on her hand," clarified Mark.

Elaine looked thoughtful, then alarmed. "Now that you mention it, you're right. She didn't have it on. How peculiar. Of course, seeing her out and about without her nurse is unusual enough…"

"See?" Bridget said smugly, turning to the doubting males. "_See?_" She turned back to Elaine. "She mentioned Ted coming to visit but leaving abruptly. Is Ted often in Grafton Underwood?"

"Yes," she said confidently, then faltered. "Well. He hasn't been around as frequently as he had been. I do remember Agnes mentioning his rather hasty departure on his last visit…"

Mark thought if he tried hard enough, he could will his mother into silence. It did not work.

"I knew it, I knew something was wrong. Mark, we're going for tea tomorrow."

"At Agnes'?"

"At Agnes'."

"What are you getting at, Bridget?" asked Elaine. "What has Ted to do with this? He's a very fine man, Ted is."

"Nothing," said Mark. "Bridget just has a slightly overactive imagination."

She turned to retort but lost her balance and if not for Mark's hold on her, she surely would have landed on her head. Instead she landed in his arms, and he pulled her down off of the railing. "Come on. It's time to get you into bed," said Mark, swatting at her backside.

Bridget snorted with a laugh and said, "Oh, after that? You wish," before heading back into the house.

Elaine and Nick both stifled their chuckles. Mark made a point to disallow her full pain pills in future.

As he was about to follow his wife in departing the patio, Elaine leaned in close, patting Mark's back. "Don't look so horrified, son," she said gently. "Bridget is just the sort of spark of life the Darcy family needs."

* * *


	2. Part 2 of 4

**For Want of a Nail **

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 26,161 (Part 2: 7,179)

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring…

Disclaimer: They're still not my characters. They are still my words.

* * *

_Sunday_

"Bridget. Are you going to sleep all day long?"

Mark's voice penetrated Bridget's sleepy haze and she turned over, momentarily forgetting about her cast, which she rolled over onto. "Ow."

"It's nearly eleven."

"Ohhh," she said. "Why did you let me sleep so long…? I didn't _want_ to sleep all day."

"That's why I've come to rouse you."

Bridget raised her hand to her head, still feeling a little woozy and sleep-drunk. If not for Mark she probably would have still been sleeping at tea time. "Do not let me have any more whole painkillers. Please."

Mark chuckled quietly. "Do you remember what you said on the patio last night?"

The previous evening came back to her in a rush, and she half-wished she couldn't remember. In her horror she pulled the covers up over her head. "Oh, what I said in front of Uncle Nick, and ohhh, especially your mother. I'm mortified."

"For what it's worth, she thought it was very amusing." He sat on the bed beside her, smirking insufferably. "You know what they say. '_In _Vicodin _veritas_'."

"Oh, shut up," she said with a pout from beneath the sheets.

"If that's the way you want it," he said, still good-naturedly, "I guess I'll have to sit in silent penance instead of helping you with your shower."

She flung back the covers, looking to him. With the broken arm, she didn't really get to take a long, hot shower every day; it was just too time-consuming with having to waterproof the cast. "Shower?"

He raised his eyebrows, his lips pursed firmly together.

She sat up. "Mark. Don't tease me. Are you going to help me take a real shower?"

Still he said nothing.

She scrambled to her feet, stripping off her pyjamas, the edge of the sleeve catching momentarily on the cast. "I would murder for a nice hot shower. Please, please, please… tell me you'll help me," she said, pushing her pants hurriedly off.

Breaking his silence, he said, barely disguising his amusement, "I had no idea thoughts of a shower would get you out of your clothes faster than I could."

Playfully she stuck her tongue out.

"Promises, promises," he said, shocking her, "but first: your shower."

Perhaps it was the fresh country air combined with the love of his silly wife that was causing such saucy behaviour in him, but Mark thought that if he couldn't be saucy with her, he didn't stand a chance with anyone else.

He also knew he had to tone it down for tea with Agnes.

She'd chosen something uncharacteristically traditional for their outing, something she'd brought on the off-chance they were invited to a dinner party. It was a pretty dress but unfortunately riddled with tiny buttons to fasten, and there was no way she could fasten them herself behind her back, even with two working arms.

"Mark, could you step it up a bit? I still have to finish my makeup," she said, turning her head to look over her shoulder at him.

"I'm going as quickly as I can. These buttons are a nightmare." He didn't have fat, stubby fingers by any means, but even these were a challenge for him. "How do designers expect women to dress themselves, even without a broken arm?" He finished the last one, then pulled her hair back behind her shoulders. "There." She turned to face him. "Very lovely."

She always seemed incredulous that he lavished such words of praise upon her; when their relationship was new it was as if she might have thought he was only saying these things to get her into bed, and after they were married, that she thought he was saying them because he was obliged to, neither of which were true. "Thank you," she said, smiling almost shyly.

He grinned. "You don't have to act like you don't believe I'm sincere," he teased.

She turned pink. "Right now I feel like I'm a giant hunk of plaster and an invisible body."

He chuckled. "I'm always sincere."

"And you never lie."

"Not when it comes to you, no."

"Do you mean to say you lie otherwise?"

"I refer you to the conversation I had with your mother yesterday to spare her feelings."

"Touché." She grinned, then headed into the bathroom.

Within twenty minutes they were heading down the drive. Bridget directed him to Agnes' home, a lovely, respectable place he'd seen many times before, not nearly the size of his own parents' (few were), but slightly larger than the Joneses'.

The property was surrounded by a beautiful stone gate and the yard was obviously well tended to, with an immaculately groomed lawn and topiary lining the front walk. She raised her hand and rang the bell at the front door, and was just about to do it again when the front door swung open to reveal an older woman, probably mid-forties, dressed in a white nurse's uniform tunic with fine blue pinstripes and blue trousers, hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. "May I help you?" asked the woman.

"Does Mrs Hase still live here?" asked Bridget tentatively.

"Yes," replied the woman. "And you are…?"

"I'm Bridget, and this is Mark. Darcy. She asked us to stop by for tea."

"Oh!" She smiled, though she looked a little surprised. "Please come in." She stepped back to allow them in. "I'm Mariah. Mrs Hase's nurse."

"Is something wrong?" Mark asked.

"You'll forgive me," said Mariah. "When Mrs Hase told me she was having company I thought it was just another one of her…" She stopped. "You know," she finished quietly.

"I'm afraid we don't know," said Mark.

"One of her _stories_," Mariah said with emphasis. "We're having company most days, according to her, when we don't."

"Ohh," said Bridget, more sympathetic than concerned.

"I'll show you to the sitting room. She's been in there reading." She led them to the sitting room, and when the three of them appeared in the doorway, Agnes looked up, and she beamed with a smile, setting down her book.

"Bridget! What a lovely surprise! Come on in, have a seat. You'll forgive me if I don't stand."

Mariah said, "I'll go fix some tea," then departed from the room.

"How lovely to see you, my dear!" said Agnes as they took a seat on the sofa. "I'm so glad to see you. It's been far too long. And who's this fine looking fellow?"

Mark turned to Bridget, who looked a little taken aback but was good enough not to show it too overtly. "This is my husband, Mark Darcy."

Mark was struck with an incredible sense of déjà-vu as he watched Agnes' face light up with recognition then heard her say, "Malcolm and Elaine's little Mark? My, you've grown into a very handsome young man. Never did think Theodore was the one for you, Bridget. I'm sure if Edward were here with us right now, he'd agree. Dearest Edward." As she wistfully concluded speaking, she patted her left hand—as if to pat her beloved old ring, Mark thought, which he was sure did not escape Bridget's notice.

"H—How is Theodore?" began Bridget uncertainly.

"Oh, he breaks my heart," said Agnes sadly. "Didn't become a doctor like I'd hoped he would. And then cuts his visit short with no explanation…"

It was very obvious that Agnes had absolutely no memory of their meeting the day before, which only strengthened his belief that she probably had locked it up for safe keeping knowing her memory was failing.

Momentarily, Mariah brought the tea and a plateful of little shortbreads, and conversation moved to small talk regarding the excellence of the tea blend and the perfect buttery flavour of said biscuits. As they sipped their tea they lapsed into silence; the only sound for many moments were the clinks of the china cups meeting their saucers again. This was followed shortly thereafter by Agnes' soft snoring.

Mariah crept in, an apologetic look upon her face, motioning that the two visitors should leave the room with her. As soon as they reached the doorway, Mariah explained quietly, "I'm so sorry. She always falls asleep after tea and biscuits, out like a light. I'll let you out."

As they passed down the hallway again, Bridget glanced around herself with a nostalgic look on her face. "Everything's like I remember it, like it's been frozen in time. Oh! Except…" She'd stopped in front of a shelf display with many antique-looking items, then prompted Mariah to stop. "Do you know what happened to the little mirror that used to be here?"

"Mirror?" asked Mariah.

"Yes, a little tabletop mirror, all scrolly and Art Nouveau. Beautiful little thing. Used to sit right about here," she said, pointing.

"Ma'am, there's never been a mirror on this shelf. I can't recall seeing a mirror like that one anywhere in the house, really."

"Huh," said Bridget. "I must be thinking of someone else's house." Mark knew this was not at all the case, fully expecting to hear all about it when they got outside.

He was not mistaken.

"Mark!" she said in quiet exasperation, as if Mariah could hear them conversing all the way at the car. "_I knew it! _I knew something was wrong. The ring _and_ the mirror are missing!"

"Bridget, you have no idea how long that mirror's been gone. You haven't been to the house in a very long time. And I still think the ring's been put away for safe keeping for its own good. You saw her—she didn't remember our meeting from just yesterday. She clearly has difficulties with her memory."

"Obviously! So that makes it easy for Ted to take advantage of her. For all we know he could be visiting every weekend and walking out of there with an armful of valuables."

"I think the nurse would surely notice."

Bridget pursed her lips and shot him a look as they seated themselves in the vehicle, and she didn't say another word the length of the drive.

They pulled into the driveway of his parents' house, and he parked the car, then switched the engine off before turning to her to ask, "Why are you so convinced he would be stealing from his grandmother, anyway?"

To his surprise, she lowered her eyes and didn't answer, not really. "It just seems odd, the sudden departure. Suspicious."

He chuckled. "Sometimes people have to drop everything for an emergency, as I'm sure you're aware. Come on, let's go in the house and get you into some proper holiday lounging clothes."

Before they could make progress back to the room, they encountered Elaine with a pitcher of lemonade, Malcolm carrying a tray of drinking glasses and Nick with a plate full of chocolate chip biscuits. "Oh! You're just in time," said Malcolm. "Come on out and have a glass of this cherry lemonade Nick's whipped together. Another perfect summer day and Bridget, you look absolutely lovely."

Bridget smiled. "Of course we'll join you." Mark was once again very thankful that his parents liked this wife so very much.

They convened upon a table in the back garden, one which a marquee had been erected over for the summer months. They sat beside one another and were each handed a glass of lemonade and three biscuits apiece.

"Delicious," said Bridget with a grin, then bit into a biscuit, a large smudge of chocolate landing on her upper lip and she giggled, licking it off. He drank from his own glass and while a little sweeter than he was used to, he had to concur that the lemonade was very refreshing and the biscuits very tasty, especially so since they were still warm. He remembered what Bridget said about plumping up while they were here, and he vowed to watch what he was eating more closely after finishing off this particular snack.

The whole Agnes business seemed blessedly forgotten until his mother asked, "So how was tea with Agnes?"

Bridget's eyes grew wide. "Oh, I'm worried about her. She didn't remember our meeting at the street fair yesterday."

"She is getting on in age," said Malcolm. "Must be in her nineties by now, I should think."

"And I think…" she began before her voice dropped down to a conspiratorial tone, "I _definitely_ think someone's stealing from her, right under her nose."

"Bridget, don't be coy. You think her grandson is stealing from her," said Mark.

Malcolm said in surprise, "Theodore? He's such a fine, upstanding man. Visits so frequently, dotes on her." Elaine nodded.

"Bridget believes this based on the fact that she isn't wearing her ring, pats her hand as if it were there. That and a mirror isn't where Bridget saw it last half a lifetime ago," Mark said, suddenly feeling rather irritable.

Nick offered, "Old Agnes is probably suffering from senile dementia—the ring could be anywhere and she wouldn't remember having taken it off."

"Exactly."

"And considering her grandson is Ted Llewellyn, I'd seriously doubt he'd need to resort to robbery to make ends meet," Nick said drolly.

Mark blinked rapidly, thankful he had not taken another sip of lemonade. 'Theodore', the suspicious grandson who broke his grandmother's heart by not becoming a doctor and who Bridget alleged must have stolen her property, was Ted Llewellyn, brilliant estate lawyer with aspirations of the judicial bench in his future.

"That settles it," Mark said tersely. "Bridget, you'll stop this nonsense about Ted and the 'missing' property at once."

She looked up to Mark, the tail end of a biscuit protruding from her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and said in a challenging tone, "Is that an order?"

Irritatedly he said, "Don't be ridiculous. Tarnishing someone's reputation like this with idle speculation is nothing to trifle with."

"'Ridiculous'. Right." She stood, drank the last of her lemonade. "Thank you for the snack, Uncle Nick. Malcolm, Elaine, excuse me. I'll be inside." She then stalked away from the table and through the double French doors into the house.

He felt the muscles of his jaw tense then loosen.

"Mark," said Malcolm. "I think you owe your wife an apology."

He knew his father was right. While that girl could be damnably frustrating, the last thing he'd wanted to do was say such things to her in front of his mother, father and uncle. Additionally, the moment he'd uttered the words he did he'd regretted them because he was inexorably reminded (as he was sure she was) of the row they'd had just after the Law Council dinner so many months ago. He nodded and was about to get up and leave when he heard a man's voice call from the back patio.

"Hallo!"

It was Bridget's father.

"Colin! Come and join us for some lemonade and biscuits."

"I'm sorry I'm early," he said, taking the seat Bridget had just vacated.

"That's okay. We're always glad to see you. Pam's not joining us?"

"She heard the word 'fishing' and decided to take Una up on an offer of card games with Mavis and Penny." He took a swig of lemonade. "Is Bridget all right? She looked a little peaked, said she was going for a lie down." He had concern written into every line on his face, was directing that concern pointedly at Mark.

"I was just about to follow her up," Mark said.

He saw his mother give him an approving look just as Nick's disapproving look disappeared.

He stood and walked to the house, scaling the stairs that would take him to their suite, feeling slightly like a man headed towards the gallows.

When he opened the bedroom door, he suddenly felt anything but doomed; he was greeted by the sight of Bridget trying to wiggle out her still-buttoned dress, which she had tried to pull up over her head. Unsuccessfully.

He desperately fought back laughter. He was already in the doghouse and didn't need to make things worse.

"I was just coming up to—" he began.

"Mark, I want to be alone," stated a voice from the depths of her upside-down dress.

"—apologise and help you get that off," he finished. He was glad she couldn't see him pursing his lips to hold back a smirk. She would have smacked him on the arm—or worse.

She stood near the edge of the bed, her mismatched forearms protruding from the top. "I'm fine," she said petulantly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to sound so autocratic down there. But I know what it's like to be under that particular microscope without credible, substantial evidence."

Her arms lowered as she bent over, grasping desperately at the fabric of the dress to continue trying to pull it off. "I know you do and I'm sorry. But she's so old and I don't care who Ted is now, I don't think I'm completely off-base…"

"Bridget, please," he said testily, his jovial mood losing whatever ground it'd gained. "Enough with this line of enquiry. I mean it. And let me help you out of your dress, for God's sake." He reached for the hem and tugged upwards, revealing more of her bare midsection and the lower half of her satin brassiere, but she quickly turned away, which jerked the dress out from between his fingers.

"I'll do it myself," she snapped.

The lovely sight of her bare skin was not enough to quell the exasperation he felt, and he pushed impatient air out from between his teeth. "Fine. I'll be outside." He stalked towards the door, and with one last look back over his shoulder at her hunching, dress-enveloped form, he left the room.

He had thought it before and he would think it again: she could be beyond maddening. He knew she was headstrong but her insistence in passing unfounded judgment on a man as well-respected as Ted Llewellyn was beyond the pale.

His mother was still under the marquee when he got back down to the garden. She had leaned back into the chair and sat up abruptly as he approached, making Mark think with welcome amusement that she must have nodded off. "Colin, Nick and your father have already headed down to the lake," she said suddenly. That was a misnomer; it was actually more of a large pond, but they'd been calling 'the lake' ever since he could remember.

"Thank you."

Before he had a chance to step away again, his mother asked, "Everything all right?"

"Fine," he said. It was not convincing.

"Mark. What's wrong?" Elaine said in a much lower tone.

He looked to the sky, sighing. "I love her but she can really test the limits of my patience at times."

He did not need to say who; Elaine knew at once. "We all know you do, Mark, and I think that's _why_ you do. But I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Well…" he began unsurely. "You could go upstairs and see if Bridget's managed to get that dress off from over her head." Elaine's eyes widened ever so slightly. "She tried to pull it off before I got upstairs without unbuttoning it and wouldn't let me help, and the thought of her up there with the dress up over her head for the rest of the evening…"

Elaine covered her mouth to hide the smirk he knew was there. "Of course, my dear." She rose to her feet, placed her hands on his arms, and kissed him quickly on the cheek. "Go on out and see if they've landed supper yet," she teased.

He got lakeside to find Colin Jones standing on the shore next to a tackle box and smoking a cigarette, while Nick and Malcolm were standing about three meters out with tall wellies on, their lines cast out into the water that was deeper than their calves. Bridget's father and Mark exchanged glances and nods of acknowledgment, then stood in comfortable silence for some time.

"How'd it go, then?" Colin asked.

"What?"

"Upstairs with Bridget. She having her lie down?"

"Presumably," Mark said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

After another puff on the cigarette, he asked, his voice decidedly more paternal: "Is everything all right? I saw the pout, felt the tension…"

Mark chuckled despite his lingering annoyance. "It's nothing serious, Mr Jones. Bridget's just being a little absurd, making a mountain out of a molehill again."

"Mark, you're married to my daughter. You should feel free to call me Colin." He smiled, looking down. "And yes, she can be very good at that. What this time?"

"Old Mrs Hase isn't wearing a ring she always used to wear, a mirror's not where it used to be twenty-some years ago, and suddenly her grandson's thieving her out of house and home."

Instead of the grin or light laugh he expected this to garner, Colin instead looked very gravely unsettled. "That might not be as absurd as you think."

Mark blinked. He knew Colin Jones to be a fairly level-headed man, and to hear him say this took Mark aback. "Why?"

He cast his gaze out over the water, and when he next spoke, his voice was much quieter, the better to keep his words from drifting along the surface of the water. "When Bridget was fourteen and very keenly 'going out' with this boy Ted two years her senior, I heard that he had a bit of a drug habit and that he had taken to petty theft to pay for it. Skunk, I think it was, but I didn't want to wait for it to progress to the harder stuff, or for her to get roped into the drug culture and become addicted herself, as impressionable as she was. I put my foot down and forbade her from seeing him again, one of the only times she and I ever had a shouting row; that is, until I explained to her _why_ I didn't want her to see him." He turned to face Mark again, looking momentarily sheepish. "I… might have gone a bit overboard with hyperbole regarding drug use…. Anyway, Pam wasn't home, thank goodness, and I've never told her, though I did bring it to the attention to the boy's parents, who were still alive then." He sighed. "They sent him off to school in parts unknown. Maybe he's on the straight and narrow now—I know the boy at least comes back to visit his granny on occasion—but I can certainly understand Bridget's suspicion."

Mark was stunned. Ted the judicial hopeful had a sordid past with illicit drugs and theft? "Why didn't she just _tell_ me this?"

"_That_ you'll have to ask her."

Mark felt an overwhelming sense of remorse. Quietly he said, "I'd better head inside."

Colin nodded.

Mark made good time getting back up to their suite, where he found Bridget had been practically tucked in by his mother for a nap; Bridget was turned away from the edge with the covers pulled up high. He sat down beside her on the bed. She didn't stir, but he knew she wasn't sleeping by the rhythm of her breathing.

"It would seem I would have done well to remember the other very valuable lesson my fifteen minutes of scandal-ridden fame taught me," he began in what he hoped was a very contrite voice, "when someone I thought I could trust, someone who was a friend, was revealed to be anything but. I should have remembered that the appearance of good may not always be what it seems to be."

She stirred, turning towards him very slowly, her eyes peering out just over the edge of the covers.

"Your father told me about Ted."

"Oh," came her muffled voice.

"And I'm sorry for even tangentially accusing you of being ridiculous or of overreacting. Honestly though… why didn't you just say something?"

"It isn't important."

"Not important?" He pulled the sheet down to reveal her entire face. "Bridget, tell me."

"You'll think it's stupid."

"Try me."

She looked away. "I was embarrassed."

"You were embarrassed?"

She nodded.

"To admit my father forbade me from seeing a boy…"

Mark chuckled. "I thought that's what parents did."

"It's the biggest argument I've ever had with my dad, the sternest he's ever been with me. It made me cry afterwards for hours. But it was a big lesson, a painful lesson, for teenaged me."

His hand slipped down to caress her face. "Sometimes parents are right even if the reason isn't always immediately obvious."

She nodded. "Especially since I, um, didn't stop seeing him."

"Bridget," he said, immediately regretting the stern tone.

"Oh, you don't have to sound like that," she said. "Obviously I did eventually stop. I realised he was not treating me the way I wanted to be treated, and he treated his grandmother even worse."

"It's to your credit that you did what was right despite your pride," he said, hoping to continue to soothe her ego.

"And…" she said, hesitating, "he confided quite proudly to me that he had nicked a thing or two from her to sell for money."

"Darling, I think things have changed substantially," said Mark, even as the revelation that Ted had previously boasted that he had stolen from his grandmother surprised and appalled him. "He hardly needs to nick things from his grandmother to pay for his vices, should he still have them."

"But he might," she said. "What if he needs to hide his habits from his girlfriend or wife?"

Bridget had a point. "We'll just have to see if that's a possibility," said Mark. He stood, walked over to the bureau where his mobile lay, took it in hand and opened it. He punched in Nigel's number; he knew that Nigel and Ted had an ongoing chess game in progress.

"Darcy?" came Nigel's jovially gruff voice as he came on the line. "Thought you were on holiday."

"I am," he said and turned his eyes to Bridget. "Just had a quick question. Putting together a possible dinner party list and want to invite Ted Llewellyn, but realised we have no idea if he's got a wife."

"Ted? Not even a girlfriend. Why do you think he spends so much time playing chess with me?" Nigel bellowed with laughter.

"I'll pass that on," he replied; he couldn't help but chuckling, himself. "Talk to you later." With that he disconnected, closing his phone, then addressed Bridget. "Well. There you have it. He's single." He sat upon the bed again. "Does that help to ease your mind?"

She sighed. "I suppose."

"You suppose," he echoed teasingly, then leaned over to kiss her. "Can we think of other things besides Ted and his grandmother, please?"

She still looked dubious. "I'm not sure I yet forgive you for doubting me," she said. There was a hint of a smirk playing the corner of her mouth.

"I did say I was sorry," he said, still hovering just above her by millimeters.

She raised her chin, turned her head away, in a gesture of playful snubbing.

He took the opportunity to avail himself of that portion of her chin and throat available to him, began to lavish attention upon them with very eager lips. Sounds of approval, of forgiveness, were soon to be heard. He pushed back the sheets and slipped in alongside her, careful to avoid her injured arm. He had no dress to circumvent, for which he was thankful; his fingers brushed along the satin of her bra cup, down to her waist, to the top of her pants, as she relented her mouth and accepted his kiss.

Yes. He reasoned he was very much forgiven.

There was, unfortunately, an interruption that could not be ignored, a rather resounding pounding on the suite door at just that moment, made more urgent as it was followed up with Bridget's father's voice: "Bridget? Mark?"

"Oh no," she said, stiffening under his touch. "Oh God. Not my father."

"Are you in there?" came the follow-up call.

"Don't let him in," she begged him in a whisper.

Mark sighed, retreating from the warmth of his wife. "Let me go assure him all is well."

He rose and walked to the door, waited for Bridget to pull the sheet back up over herself before opening it enough to see Colin standing there, looking slightly worried. "Everything all right?"

Mark smiled patiently. "Everything is fine."

Relief washed over his features. "I figured as much but I wanted to be sure before I headed home. Where's Bridget? Can I see her?"

"She's… um. Napping."

"Oh." His features then changed subtly, as if he suddenly noticed that Mark had not opened the door the whole way as well as with Mark's white lie and drawing the obvious conclusion, and he turned somewhat pink as he repeated, "_Oh._"

Eager to get the man's mind off of what he thought he might have interrupted, Mark encouraged, "I thought you were staying for supper. You could see her then."

"No, no, can't stay after all," said Colin. "Cards were a bust and Pam called to tell me she's coming by to pick me up so we can have supper out. I told her to take her time because I had to get something in the house but…" He trailed off, and Mark understood instantly. If Colin wasn't ready and waiting, Pam would come in to find him, and that would be double mortification for Bridget.

"Have a good evening," said Mark.

Colin smiled, then left. Mark closed the door, ensured that it latched, then rejoined Bridget on the bed. "He's gone," he said, stating the obvious.

She did not push the covers back. "I'm a little put off now," came the voice from beneath them.

He sighed. He had to admit his enthusiasm had sagged somewhat since the sudden appearance of her father. "We probably should get ready for dinner."

"Yeah," came her reply.

He rose from her side, went over to the lamp, and switched it on; his mother had not been kidding when she said it stayed relatively dim in there most of the day. "Presumably you do not want to put the dress back on. What would you like to wear?"

"Anything's fine." He looked back to see she had at least pushed the sheets back and sat up.

He pulled out a pair of cotton trousers and a casual knit shirt of pale blue that he rather liked to see her in. He brought them to her. She grinned. "You always pick this shirt out for me."

"What can I say?" he said, a self-satisfied smile finding his lips. "I know what I like and I stick with it."

He helped her slip into the top, carefully threading her injured arm through the sleeve. He pulled the top down to her waist, smoothing it down along her sides.

"What exactly is so great about this shirt, anyway? It's pretty boring."

He thought for a few moments, then began enumerating the reasons. "The colour brings out the brightness of your eyes," he began. "The knit is snug without being too tight and the vee-neck is _just_ low enough; the combination nicely showcases your rather exquisite… assets."

"Mark," she said in a tone that was a strange mixture of flattered and appalled. "Every time I wear this now I'm going to think you're ogling me."

"So what if I am? Wouldn't you worry if I didn't?"

She reached out and slapped the back of his hand lightly, and she was smiling but blushing in a manner that he found irresistible.

"Give me my trousers," she said in an obvious redirection of subject.

"Why should I do that?" he asked, his fingers tracing along the waistband of that beloved shirt. His enthusiasm was returning in spades.

"Dinner?" she said, as if he were a slow child. "You just said—"

"Forget what I just said."

He pulled her close and kissed her, hooking his thumbs under the elastic waist of her pants. Soon enough, she did forget.

Bridget never wanted to be considered a Smug Married, but when it came to being married to Mark, there were certain aspects she was very, very smug about. Those of her friends who were also already married would often complain how their sex lives had withered and nearly died once vows had been exchanged. On this subject Bridget would stay decently mute; she wanted to keep her friends.

Dinner that evening had become quite an adventure. Every time she'd looked up she'd caught Mark gazing at her, and he'd meet her eyes and smirk very subtly, undoubtedly thinking of their earlier shag while she was wearing what she'd always considered to be a rather plain, boring shirt, one she'd had no idea he thought so highly of. The exchange of looks became something of a naughty game. If there had been meaningful conversation with the meal, she had no recollection of it, though she did recall Elaine apologising profusely for telling Colin in which room they were staying.

The game had concluded back in their quarters not too long after dessert, and after a decent night's sleep, continued most enthusiastically the next morning with plenty of time to make it down for breakfast. The scent of freshly baked muffins and coffee led them to the back patio once again, where the family had assembled and greeted them with smiling faces.

"It's a beautiful Monday morning," called Elaine with a wave and a grin. Bridget was suddenly struck with the notion that everyone present—Elaine, Malcolm and especially Uncle Nick—knew full well why they had retired early and were joining them for breakfast late. She waved back with her left arm, squeezed the right hand that had settled around Mark's waist, then broke away to take a seat at the table.

She grabbed two muffins teeming with fresh blueberries as Mark poured her a cup of coffee. "Would you like me to butter your muffin?" she asked Mark, then felt herself flush; given the activities of the evening before and of the morning, this perfectly innocent request suddenly sounded horribly double-entendre to her ears.

Mark seemed oblivious to her discomfort and said, "Yes, I'd love that."

Eager to change the subject, Bridget said as she accepted her coffee from Mark, smiling most angelically, "So we've been talking it over, and I've realised that I'm probably reading too much into Agnes' missing ring, after all."

She looked up and met Mark's eyes. He smiled, believing her completely, not that she was being untruthful as such. Just because she intended on doing a little additional searching on her own about the ring, about Ted himself, didn't mean she was lying; that's why qualifying words like "probably" were so important.

"Excellent, my dear," said Malcolm. "Shouldn't borrow trouble where there is none."

Elaine nodded. "You should be enjoying your time off here in the country."

However, she caught Nick raising an eyebrow, and she was suddenly afraid that she wouldn't be able to completely fool that sharp old bugger.

"I don't think either Mark or Bridget could be accused of not enjoying their time off in the country," Nick said drolly.

She felt herself turn pink again. Nick was, of course, the least subtle about letting her know he knew. Mark was pathetically oblivious to her mortification, as was usually the case post-coitally. She reasoned it took a little longer for the oxygen to get back into the logical parts of his brain, and didn't hold it against him.

After polishing off her muffin, she cleared her throat and announced that since she hadn't touched her laptop since getting to Grafton Underwood, she really needed to check her e-mail. "Bridget darling," said Elaine, "one of the whiz kids in town helped set up a secured wireless network. Password's Mark's birthday. Connection's best in the library. Have fun."

She took in the last of her coffee, rose from her seat, bent to give Mark a quick kiss on the lips, then trotted back into the house to fetch her laptop.

Quickly she went back down to the library, established the internet connection and curled up on one of those seemingly-standard wealthy-person leather sofas; theirs at least wasn't ice-cold to the touch. She spent many frustrating moments trying to find information on good old Ted. Nothing was available that she hadn't already heard from Mark and Nick: practically a saint-style person who seemed to have a very promising future as a judge.

She idly wondered how he'd managed to keep his chequered past so hidden.

Annoyed at finding no useful information to the point of almost tossing her computer to the floor, she decided to try the search from another angle. She brought up a new tab and her favourite search engine, then sat and stared at the screen.

What to search on?

With a light laugh, she decided, typed in the phrase "ugly Victorian ring" then pressed Enter.

Three or four results down, she found something very intriguing. The abstract for the search hit included the phrase "…the ugliest, dare I say _fugliest_, ring to ever exist, ostensibly Victorian…". Eagerly she clicked on the result. It was someone's online blog, and there was not much more to see there, just a very small thumbnail of a ring that closely resembled the ring she remembered Agnes having, linking back to an online auction site. Adrenaline shot through her system. She clicked on the link.

The auction was still going strong, and there it was in all its glory, Agnes' horrid old scratchy ring. She gasped, actually said out loud, "Oh my God."

She then saw the seller's name listed: AngelX. She clicked on it, was astounded to see eight other items currently for sale.

"I should have known," came the wry voice from behind her. "You gave up far too easily."

Uncle Nick. She sighed.

Instead of continuing to harangue her on this subject, though, he took a close look at what was on her screen, and said, "Bridget, zoom in on that watch."

She furrowed her brow, directed her cursor over the photo in the lower right corner, then clicked. It raised a new page for another auction. Nick took a seat beside her on the sofa, and was silent for so many minutes it worried her.

"Nick?"

He spoke at last. "I know that watch. I remember Edward wearing it. That face is very unique."

There was a long silence again and it dawned on her that maybe, just maybe, she had an ally in her suspicions. However, something about this whole thing seemed off, and as her eyes lit on the word 'charity', she realised that every one of the auctions was to benefit a non-profit organisation.

"Bridget," said Nick. "These are all charity auctions."

She sighed. "I see that."

"That kind of puts a hole in your theory," he said.

"You needn't keep driving the point home."

"It would appear to be that you were right about Agnes' possessions," he began, and she was proud that she might have actually won him over until he continued, "though it's possible she has asked him to sell these things for her."

"It's possible," said Bridget moodily, "but I think it's unlikely. Especially not her precious, horrible ring. She certainly doesn't need the money."

"But it's possible that she knows the end is nigh and he's helping her clear out the estate of things he doesn't want while she's still alive."

"That's bloody morbid of you," said Bridget, screwing up her face.

"The woman _is_ in her nineties. The inevitable is coming sooner rather than later."

"Oh no."

They both turned to see Mark standing there.

"You aren't. Please tell me you aren't. You said you were off of this little obsession, Bridget."

"I did say 'probably'," she offered meekly.

"Right." He then directed his rather pointed gaze to his uncle. "And please tell me _you_ aren't encouraging this."

Nick gestured to the computer screen. "She's on to something."

If she didn't know better, she'd have thought Mark had gone over to the wall and smacked it soundly against the plaster three or four times for the look on his face. "Let's see this irrefutable proof, shall we?" he said petulantly.

"I never said 'irrefutable'. But she did find what is undoubtedly Agnes' ring and a watch I recognise as Edward's both being sold here on this auction site." He beckoned Mark to get a little closer, and he pointed to the screen as Mark sat down on Bridget's other side.

Mark looked at the items listed for sale, asked Bridget to return to the page for the ring, and looked thoughtful. He quickly drew the same conclusion as his uncle had: "But if he stole them for profit, why sell them to benefit a charity? Besides, I can see no obvious connection between Ted and this seller 'AngelX'."

"Well, no, you wouldn't. None of us would," said Bridget.

"—because he'd be stupid to use a name too closely connected with his own," finished Nick.

Mark seemed to sense he was being ganged up on, and looked slightly terrified. "What if someone else stole these items, found they weren't easy to fence, and decided to just dump them in an auction?"

"That's a possibility, but who else would have a chance to get to the stuff in that house? The nurse is there constantly," said Bridget.

"What if it's the nurse?" said Mark.

"Now who's accusing the innocent?" said Nick playfully.

Mark looked back and forth between his wife and his uncle and seemed to decide that it was best that he keep his mouth shut.

Bridget went back to the seller's page listing the other auctions. The oldest of the auctions, listed at the bottom of the page, was from the beginning of the month, and beside it was a small photo of—

"Mark, look! It's the mirror!"

"What?" he asked.

"The mirror that was missing from the hallway. I'd recognise it anywhere."

She clicked on the thumbnail and expanded the picture to full screen. There was no way Mark could accuse her of misidentifying, because it was so unique as to be unmistakable. Long, languid lines, floral patterning on the edges, a distinct Art Nouveau design. She looked to Mark, watched him scrutinize the picture.

"That is a very… distinct-looking mirror," he said, and she wondered if that was as much as he would allow her. Frustrating man.

She turned and quickly and playfully punched him in the upper arm, and without thinking she used her left fist. It zinged to her shoulder but the shot landed true. He reacted by grabbing where she'd landed her punch. "Ow!"

"I'm right and you can't admit it," she said with a pout.

"You _may_ be right, Bridget," said Nick supportively of his nephew.

"Be quiet or I'll punch you too," she joked.

* * *


	3. Part 3 of 4

**For Want of a Nail **

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 26,161 (Part 3: 6,632)

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring…

Disclaimer: They're still not my characters. They are still my words.

I feel like kind of a dork. I should have mentioned in Part 1 that this is sort of a continuation of the universe begun in several previous stories: "In Sickness And...", "The Scandal", "The Perfect Match", and even "The Prodigal Son". If you haven't read these, you shouldn't be too lost, though if you're feeling a bit lost, that would be why. (Will go back and edit part 1.)

* * *

As much as Mark hated to admit it, the photos of now three items positively identified as having belonged to Agnes Hase anonymously listed for sale on a charity auction site was fairly suspicious and damning for anyone with access to the house. Mariah the nurse had ample opportunity and motive (some of those pieces would have fetched a lot of money if they could have been properly fenced) and before he could seriously consider her grandson Ted, a man whom he knew and respected by reputation, Mariah would have to be eliminated as a suspect. Of greater concern at the moment though was the obvious grimace of pain on Bridget's face after her punch to his arm.

He realised he could kill two birds with one stone.

"Darling," he said to her gently, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie," piped up Nick. "You just socked your husband with a broken arm."

She sighed. "It does hurt a bit now."

"Come on," Mark said, reaching for the laptop and closing the lid. "Let's put this aside for now and go upstairs, have something to lessen the pain…" At Nick's smirk Mark amended, "…like one of your Vicodins, and have a nap."

"Mark," she said in protest.

"I'll hear none of it," Mark said, taking her right hand and pulling her to her feet.

She sighed, then went with him upstairs.

"Are you sure I should take a whole one?" she asked as she sat on the bed with a white oval in her hand and a glass of water.

"Yes. It'll kill the pain and let you sleep."

"But it'll put me out for a good long while."

_Precisely_, he thought. "I'll lie here with you, maybe rub a little arnica into my arm to keep it from bruising," he teased.

She sighed again, lifted the pill to her lips, then swallowed it down with a huge gulp of water.

The pain medication never took long to start working, and before he could even get his shirt off and into the bathroom to fetch out the tube of anti-bruising salve, her eyes started to get that faraway, glazed look he associated with the narcotics. "Ah," she said. "That's feeling much better already."

"I'm glad." He watched as she stood unsteadily to flip back the sheets. "Why don't you let me help you out of your clothes?"

She giggled. "You are too much."

He made a dismissive sound. "I mean so your shirt and skirt don't get wrinkled."

She grinned, lifting her arms up, and he pulled the shirt over her head, then the skirt down to her ankles. "You can take off this barbaric thing, too," she added, pointing to her bra. "It's murder to sleep in, really."

He had offered to undress her, so he had no one to blame for her teasing but himself. He pulled on her arm to turn her around, but she made a clucking sound. "You have plenty of practice doing this from right where you are," she said. She looked distinctly unfocused now.

_No one else to blame_, he thought again as he put his arms around her, took the bra clasp in his fingers, and undid it. He then grabbed the arm straps and pulled forward. "There. Now get in bed. I'll be right back."

He went into the bathroom, tended to the sore spot on his arm, then returned to her side to find she had already fallen fast asleep. It was just as well, because as much as he liked holding her in his arms as she lulled off to sleep, as much as he liked gazing upon her loveliness, he had something of a mission to accomplish, and as soon as he had pulled the covers over her sacked-out form, he dressed again in his shirt and left.

He told his mother he had an errand to run in Grafton Underwood proper, that he would be back soon and to let Bridget know should she wake, but he doubted she would.

He was at the Hase house in no time at all and found Mariah the nurse on the porch of the house smoking a cigarette. She grinned sheepishly as she lowered it in a manner uncannily like Bridget's. She said, "I know, I'm a nurse, I should know better… Mr Darcy, was it? What brings you our way again today?"

Damn. He had not thought of how to explain his returned presence.

"Oh," he said, thinking quickly, "my wife Bridget misplaced her sunglasses and thought she might have left them somewhere yesterday, so I'm backtracking everywhere we were yesterday in the hopes of finding them."

"I'm sorry, I don't recall she had sunglasses on when she arrived," said Mariah, "and I haven't found any."

"Ah well. Thanks anyway." He put his hands in his pockets. "How is Agnes doing today? When we saw her yesterday she had forgotten meeting me the day before."

A look of sadness washed over Mariah's face. "She has good days and bad days. She has better days when she has visitors, but in the three months I've been with her the only visitor I've seen her have was her grandson."

_Three months?_ he thought, then said, "That's a shame."

"It's possible she used to get more visitors before—" She stopped suddenly. "Well, before."

"Before what?"

"Well, with the old nurse." Mariah held the cigarette up and took a drag, then spoke confidentially: "She had an accident and died. Fell down the stairs, right here at the house. Very sad."

Mark tried very hard to rein in a reaction. It was true that people did occasionally fall down stairs and die as a result, but he thought of Bridget's response to hearing of this accident… well, he would either have to lock her in the bedroom to keep her from investigating further, or suck it up and help her.

Neither sounded remotely palatable, but in the interest of marital harmony and peace of mind, he realised he would have no choice but to go with the latter.

"You might not have heard about it," continued Mariah, "as you live in town."

"I had not. How terrible for Agnes for such a thing to have happen in her own home."

"She was pretty shaken up at the time. She'd been napping in the sitting room like she does after tea and the commotion startled the bejeezus out of her. It's a good thing Ted was there to call the ambulance and take care of her until he could find another nurse."

_Nothing like adding fuel to the fire_, Mark thought, thinking of Bridget's reaction to Ted's being there to visit at the time. "Was Ted actually there when it happened?"

"Oh no," said Mariah. "He was apparently having lunch at the pub in Grafton Underwood when it actually happened. Poor Agnes recalls clear as day how she called Ted's mobile to come home at once. She'd been too afraid and too weak to get up to see what had happened."

He had to admit his lawyerly thought processes immediately concluded that Ted might have been anywhere when he got the call on his mobile, and knew Bridget would think the same.

"What a tragedy," he said neutrally. "Well. I shan't take any more of your time, and I had better continue on my quest for the sunglasses. Good afternoon." He smiled, tipped his head cordially to the side as a sort-of bow, then retreated for his vehicle.

As he got back into the car to go home to his parents', he was filled with a growing dread about telling Bridget what he'd found out, and decided to bring a peace offering back with him.

When he returned to the house, she had apparently recently awakened to slip herself into a long tee shirt (which he noticed was inside out) but was still somewhat drug-groggy. "Where did you run off to?" she asked grumpily.

"I had an errand to run," he admitted, then sat down on the bed beside her.

"What kind of errand?"

He handed her a little white bag, more of the delicious truffles she'd enjoyed at the street fair. Her face lit up. "Thank you!"

He placed a kiss in her hair. "You're welcome. How are you feeling?"

"Better than before." She turned her face to the sun, to the doors leading out to the balcony. "Nice day outside?"

"Yes."

"Want to join me?"

He grinned. As if he would say no.

They spent some time standing at the balustrade of the balcony, peering out over the countryside with his arm about her waist. He heard, felt, Bridget sigh from beside him before she said, "I lived here in Grafton Underwood for most of my childhood that I can remember, yet there's something about the view from this house that just… wow. Takes my breath away."

He smiled. "You do realise that someday this place will be ours, don't you?"

She turned to look up at him, a slight lack of comprehension evident in her features. "Ours?"

"I love my parents, but they are, unfortunately, not immortal."

She blinked. "What about your brother?"

"He doesn't want the house. Harder to set up a charitable foundation that way."

"Oh." She looked a little overwhelmed. "Well, yes, I suppose this should have occurred to me before, but… wow. This house makes the Holland Park house look like a child's model."

He chuckled. "It's large, I'll grant you that."

"Crikey," she said, still looking dumbfounded. "Any other surprises for me today?"

Mark sighed. He realised he could stay silent on the subject no more.

"Bridget, when I went out during your nap, getting you chocolates wasn't all I went to do," he said. "I went to speak to Mariah."

"The nurse? Why would—oh Mark. You didn't."

"I didn't walk up to her and accuse her of stealing from Agnes, if that's what you're thinking," he said gruffly. "Give me a little credit."

"So what did you do?"

Leading her back inside to sit once more on the bed, he described his conversation with Mariah, told her every detail he'd learned, and her reaction was about what he'd expected it to be. "I remember Mum telling me about someone dying in an accidental fall here in Grafton Underwood but… well, I admit sometimes I tune my mum out when she's going on and on about town gossip." She stopped and took a deep breath, then continued dramatically, "Mark, don't you see how horrible this looks for Ted? The old nurse might have found out… and had to be silenced!"

"Bridget." _Don't be ridiculous_ was poised to come out of his mouth, and figuratively he bit his tongue. "Ted was in the pub having lunch. I'm sure witnesses were interviewed by the police. That's not the sort of thing they'd overlook."

"Oh, but what if they all lied for him? You said he's very powerful."

"What of the auctions, though? I saw that the oldest one was fewer than three months ago, which is when Mariah started. She could have been lying about not having seen the mirror."

"Unless Ted took the mirror away before—" She suddenly stopped talking, and pouted. "Mark! I can't believe you went and did this without me!"

Her little outburst took him by surprise. "What?"

She leaned forward and lightly punched him in the arm again, this time with her good hand. "You wanted to try to prove me silly and wrong."

"Silly _and_ wrong?" he said with a laugh. "Being silly is the worse crime?"

Lowering her brows, she leaned to punch him again. "Don't make fun of me. I'm on drugs."

This only made him laugh harder, which caused her to raise up her left foot and try to push him off the bed. He grabbed her ankle, which prompted her to get her right foot and right arm involved in her efforts to evict him onto the floor.

He was bigger, stronger, and not impeded by the diminishing effects of narcotics, so he had a definite advantage over her, and shortly was in fact literally over her.

"Do you concede the fight?" she asked, which was laughable as he had her pinned down by the wrist (right arm) and shoulder (left arm).

"Concede from my winning position? I think not."

She raised up her head and placed her mouth on his throat, which he had foolishly left exposed, then grazed her teeth over his skin. "How about now?"

"Hmmm."

He realised that in his effort to avoid further injuring her broken arm, he had made a tactical error in only pinning down her left shoulder. Her left hand and fingers were still quite free, still fully functional, and she put them to work.

"Oh," he said softly, closing his eyes. "I concede."

Shortly after Mark left the room to take Bridget up for a nap, Nick eyed her closed laptop warily. He wasn't crazy about technology—he didn't even like using the mobile he had—nor was he crazy about opening Bridget's computer without her permission, but the contact information for the charity auction website was right there within his grasp, and he was itching to make a phone call.

_To hell with it_, he thought, picking up the laptop and opened it. It awoke and revealed the last page they'd viewed. As he clicked through to the Contact Us page, he was thankful that Bridget wasn't so security-minded as to require a password to wake the computer back up.

He quickly located a London phone number and dialed it, introducing himself as an attorney for a party who believed that the items up for sale might be stolen.

The woman on the other end of the line made a sound of surprise. "Oh, no, that can't be."

"How can you be certain?"

"The contact for the donating party assured us that the items belonged to the family for generations. However, I would be happy to do some research for you and call you back."

"Yes, thank you very much." He gave the woman his mobile number, thanked her for her time and disconnected.

Shortly thereafter he headed down to the kitchen to begin preparing lunch, a three cheese quiche. He had taken the time to grate the cheese, make and brown the crust, and was in the middle of beating the eggs to a froth when his mobile began to ring.

"Bloody hell," he said, setting the bowl down, glaring at them as if they shouldn't dare to go flat while he answered the call. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the mobile and pressed the button to answer it. Gruffly he said, "Yes?"

"Hello, Mr Wentworth? This is Ms Jennings." It was the woman from the auction house, and she sounded slightly nervous.

"Ms Jennings. So good of you to get in touch so quickly."

"Yes, well, we're all very grateful for your call," she said. "Saved us a great deal of potential liability."

Intrigued, Nick knit his brows. "What did you find out?"

If Mark had to surrender, it was the sweetest sort of surrender imaginable.

The playful tussling had put an extra little spark of passion into things, and he'd had her tee shirt and pants off and across the room in no time flat. He had broken away from her only at her insistence that he be as undressed as she was, and returned quickly to the bed, determined to finish what he'd started.

"Where was I?" he growled into her ear as he rolled to have her beneath him.

"I think you know—_oh_," she said, giggling then sighing as he dove upon her neck with his mouth, running his fingers hastily over her hip and leg, carrying on with great enthusiasm.

"Oh, _ohhh_, _Mark_," she hissed into his ear just as things were getting particularly satisfying, which spurred him on until she added, "Someone's at the door."

He then heard the pounding, followed by:

"Mark? Bridget? You've napped long enough. Get up. This is important."

_Not again_, he thought.

This time it was Uncle Nick, whose voice and presence was about as effective as a wet blanket at putting out even the hottest of smouldering embers. He pushed himself up and away from Bridget, locating and putting his shirt back on.

"One moment." In his haste to get into bed with his wife he had carelessly tossed his clothes aside, something that he now regretted, as he could not locate his boxers; there was a reason he usually folded them tidily.

"Mark!" she said quietly. "What about me?"

"Stay under the sheets."

"No way, then he'll know for sure."

"I'm sure he knows for sure already. Besides, he's already practically caught us in the act at least once before, as I'm sure you—"

"Mark, boy, what's taking so long? Looking for your bloody pants?" called Nick impishly. Bridget turned crimson.

He gave up on the boxers and slipped back into the trousers, carefully though quickly tucking in the polo shirt and fastening the trousers. He picked up Bridget's shirt and helped her back into it so she could at least sit up decently, though he had also lost track of her bra, but didn't have time to care.

Mark at last went to the door and opened it. "Yes, what's the matter?"

Nick's eyes went quickly to Mark's trousers, which he realised that in his haste he had zipped up so sloppily the tail of the shirt was poking out the fly, then over to Bridget; the small of her back was visibly quite bare. Nick's smirk was undeniably amused and impossibly smug.

"'Napping'. Right." He strode in regardless. "Anyway. I've just spoken with a Ms Jennings from the auction site."

"Oh? What did you find out?" asked Bridget eagerly.

After righting his trousers, Mark sat beside Bridget and subtly pulled the covers up around her. She was so interested in Nick's answer she didn't even notice him doing so.

"You were partially right, Bridget. The items _were_ stolen—" He paused in that dramatic way he had, looking to Bridget, who looked smug until he continued, "but not from Agnes."

Nick's addendum had Mark's attention in a snap. "What?"

"Turns out they were among a cache stolen from a small villa in France fifty years ago."

For the confusion swirling around in Mark's head, Nick might have suddenly began speaking Urdu. "Are you joking?" Mark asked at last. Bridget sat enthralled.

"I'm not. All auction activity has been suspended pending further investigation. They need to determine under whose jurisdiction possession of the goods might be prosecutable: the UK's (no statute of limitations) or France's (which has long since passed)." Sensing he might lose Bridget in legalese, he veered back to the tale at hand. "They were apparently stolen by an illustrious thief working in the south of France at the time, someone hitting the richest and most reclusive of families. Apparently signed himself as 'Le Lapin Agile', or simply 'Le Lapin'."

_'The nimble rabbit,'_ Mark thought. _Probably a local hero, practically a Robin Hood._ At that Mark inwardly groaned—all he needed was for Bridget to romanticise the crime and the criminal.

Bridget spoke at last. "How exciting!"

He sighed. Just as he suspected. "I doubt though that Ted, a legal expert, would risk everything to kill a nurse to get rid of items that are likely considered legally his under the law anyway, regardless how he came upon them," scoffed Mark.

Nick looked stunned. "Wait, what? Kill a nurse?"

Mark briefly explained Agnes' previous nurse's untimely demise to Nick. "Bridget thinks she must have had to be 'silenced'," he said.

Bridget made a dismissive sound. "That was the drugs talking. I can't imagine Ted _actually_ capable—" She stopped, then as if struck by a bolt from the blue, Bridget exclaimed, "Oh my God!"

"What?" asked Nick and Mark in unison.

"Don't you see? Ted's grandfather must have been the thief!"

"That's a bit of a reach, don't you think?"

She looked overwhelmingly self-satisfied. "To think that I, the one who received a D in French, would be the one to point this out to two Cambridge men: 'hase' is the French word for a lady rabbit."

She was absolutely right. The coincidence would be staggering, if unrelated.

Nick said, "Well, a man _might_ kill to hide skeletons in his closet."

It was now Bridget's turn to scoff. "Oh, nonsense. It would be _exciting_ to have a notorious criminal turn up in one's family tree. Ted would never kill just because of _that_. To think, the man who brought me back to my mum when I wiped out on my bike age six was a famous cat burglar!" She practically had stars in her eyes.

Mark and Nick looked to one another, and for once he felt the novel sensation of being more suspicious than Bridget was. If she thought there was now less motive for Ted to want to kill, she was very wrong. They both knew full well the extremes to which men would go when they didn't want their secrets revealed, and Bridget should have known, too. And this was a big secret.

At last, Nick spoke. "Bridget, if Ted discovered that his grandfather was a notorious thief, he might do whatever he had to do to protect that secret, to protect his own future and legal career."

"It's nigh on impossible to be a judge when you have a criminal in your family tree," said Mark. "Especially an infamous one."

"Knowing Ted as I do," she said, "I'm going to reserve judgment." That would be a novelty, thought Mark, as she had been the one to so vehemently accuse him of thieving from his own grandmother in the first place. "So what are we going to do?" she asked, looking from Mark to Nick.

"_We_ are doing nothing," said Mark. "If a crime has been committed, that's for the police to handle." He was thankful for their currently being in Grafton Underwood. It was far more difficult for Bridget to be mobile out here.

"I agree one hundred percent," said Nick drolly. "Mark, hide your car keys; don't want her haring off to London to speak with her old pal DI Kirby. Hide her phone for good measure, too."

At Bridget's murderous look, Mark chuckled, then quickly composed his features.

"Well," said Nick. "Now that we're in agreement that no further action is to be taken—" He turned his most penetrating stare upon Bridget. "—I suppose I should let you get back to your… _nap_." He strode back to the door, pausing momentarily to poke his toe at something that had caught his eye. "Ah. I believe I found your pants, Mark," he said as he left the room.

There were many moments of silence after his departure, during which Mark found himself unable to meet his wife's eye. When at last he did, she began to laugh, even though she was herself recovering from the most scarlet of blushes.

"That was mortifying," said Mark.

"It was, but really. Mark, enjoying shagging his wife?" she joked; with a dramatic flourish, she brought the back of her hand to her forehead, and added in a mock offended tone, "'Will the shades of Pemberley be thus polluted?'"

"I'm serious, Bridget."

"Oh, Mark, no one thinks any less of you for having a healthy sex life. In fact," she said, her tone becoming conspiratorial, "they're probably jealous." She raised her hand and tenderly patted his forearm. "Besides. If you don't keep me occupied, I might go have a chat with good old DI Kirby, right?"

'Healthy' was not the word that immediately came to mind—'all-consuming' seemed closer to the mark—but he thought she did have a very good point, never mind that he hated leaving things in the unfinished state that they had.

As she reached for the button at his waist, he said in a long-suffering voice, "Oh, the things I have to do to keep you safe."

There were times when Bridget almost forgot she was supposed to be convalescing a broken arm, but certain circumstances brought it heavily to the forefront. Trying to find a comfortable post-shag cuddle position was one of those circumstances. She hated not being able to just drape herself as she liked over him, since she was usually too fuzzy-headed afterwards to have to think about where her arms were. There was also the cast itself, whose bulky form did not innately lend itself to comfort.

"Ow," she said, shifting so that her arm was free to rest over his still-heaving chest.

"Poor dear," he said, his eyes still closed. As the cast made contact with this skin, she swore he went concave in reflex; his eyes flew open in shock. "That thing is a little on the cool side."

"Sorry."

He accepted the apology by gathering her close to him with his own left arm. "How are you liking our little holiday so far?"

While it wasn't the continent, she had little to complain about so far: how could she when she had so much of his time and attention? She sighed as she smiled, turning her head slightly to place a kiss on his collarbone. "Record levels of bliss, mixed with a little intrigue, a little mystery. Very good indeed."

He chuckled. "I'm glad to hear the bliss rates well above the intrigue and the mystery."

However, not all was rosy; her stomach chose that moment to make its complaints known and they both started to laugh. "Come on. Don't want to be accused of starving you."

He helped her to dress and after dressing himself—this time each of them properly—they padded down to the kitchen, where they found the majority of a baked quiche still there on the counter. Mark cut them each a good slice and poured them each some water tinged with lemon to wash it down.

"Mark! Bridget! There you are." It was Elaine, returning from a trip to the market, or so Bridget guessed by the carrier bags in her hand overflowing with fresh broccoli. "Bit of a late lunch?"

"Yes. We were napping and slept longer than intended," said Mark after swallowing the latest mouthful.

Bridget hid her laugh by smiling and directing her attention towards her plate. "Another of Nick's wonderful creations," said Bridget, pointing with her fork. "I honestly don't know when he finds the time to do it all."

"I never understood that myself. I especially never understood why no woman wouldn't want to snap him up for his culinary talents alone."

"Mother, you must admit that he's a bit of an acquired taste," piped up Mark, tactfully saying what Bridget herself was thinking. "As his sister you're a touch biased, I think."

Elaine grinned. "I know, I know…"

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," came Nick's voice from the staircase. "Ah, Elaine, my broccoli. Thank you. If you ladies wouldn't mind washing and cutting them up into florets, I need Mark's opinion on the lesson plan I'm devising for the next term. Upstairs, if you don't mind?"

Legal talk bored her to tears, law school lesson plans even more so, so Bridget was happy to stay and help as best she could with the broccoli, as it gave her a chance to speak with Elaine.

"So I trust you've been having a relaxing time since you've been here?" Elaine asked as soon as she had dumped all of the broccoli into a colander and run it under the tap. Bridget settled herself on a stool.

"Yes, very relaxing, except for this Ted business. Do you want me to help?"

"No, that's fine." She shook the colander to get out the excess water, then plucked a stem out and began sectioning it up. "So what is this 'Ted business'?"

Bridget then recounted everything, from the earliest suspicions to what they had just learned from Nick. Elaine was appropriately astonished, and had to set the knife down lest she mistakenly chop into her own hand.

"Well, yes, I suppose it is correct for the auction house to pull the sales pending investigation, lest they be charged themselves in any conspiracy of stolen goods. I've spent enough time around my son to know that much," she said with a grin as she resumed chopping. "What else is being done? Do you know?"

"That's just it," said Bridget, then said in a mock-stern tone imitating her husband, "'Let the police handle it, if there is a crime involved'. So… nothing as yet that I'm aware of. He certainly doesn't want me to take matters into my own hands."

"Well, this is Mark we're talking about," said Elaine with a smile. "Looking after you since you were four years old."

Bridget felt a smile spread across her own face, and silently thanked her lucky stars once more for her excellent fortune.

"What else do you think can be done, though?"

"Well, I think it's all going to depend on whether the items are going to fall under French or English law, but that's not an area I intend on mucking about in," she said, her focus firmly back on the food in front of her. "If the items are legally the family's, there's really nothing to charge him with. Ted can give that stuff away if he wants, and he can't prove he didn't have permission from his dotty old grandmother." The subtlety of her smile reminded Bridget uncannily of her son's.

"I want to do something though, call Ted—"

"Oh, no, Bridget. I'm afraid I'm with Mark on this one. Leave well enough alone."

"Thank you, Mother, for resisting her efforts in recruiting you into her nefarious army," came a voice from behind them, and as she felt Mark's hand slide across her shoulder, she felt her pout extend by degrees.

"Finished already?" asked Elaine; Bridget realised he hadn't been gone all that long.

"It was a very well-conceived lesson plan," he said absently. "I'm not sure why he thought he needed my opinion." She looked over her shoulder and up to him and caught the tail end of a distracted, far-away expression.

"Everything all right?"

"Oh, just fine." He dropped his head to place a kiss on her forehead. "Except for your continued incorrigible ways," he added, inconspicuously and firmly patting her on the bottom.

Nick swept in at just that moment and said under his breath, "You'll have to do it harder than that for it to be effective."

Mark ignored the comment as Bridget flushed pink. "What would you like to do today, darling?"

"Whatever it is," said Elaine, corralling the last of the florets into a large bowl for Nick's use making whatever it was he intended on making, "you should be prompt for supper. I've asked Pam and Colin over."

That suddenly explained the volume of broccoli, much expanded from the usual. "Thank you," said Nick to his sister, as he took the bowl in his hands.

"Okay," said Mark; the lack of fuss in his tone of voice surprised her. Usually the prospect of an evening with her mother made him twitch.

"I have a marvelous idea," said Elaine. "Mark, your father's tending to the horses. Why don't you and Bridget go for a ride?"

"Mm, yes, a turn around the park on Allie sounds very pleasant," he said.

She looked at him in shock. He was agreeing to a horse ride when she had a broken arm?

"Don't look like that," he said, seemingly knowing what she was thinking. "You and I can ride together. And Allie is the most docile horse I've ever known."

She suddenly liked the idea very, very much.

They had been lucky, hitting a stretch of summer weather that was not too hot nor too chilly, not a cloud in the clear blue sky. Mark felt especially lucky, astride his father's large but gentle mare, walking leisurely along the perimeter of the fields, one arm around the waist of his lovely wife, the other controlling the reins, not that the horse was in need of much controlling. It was a challenge to sit comfortably on the saddle together, but in the end they'd made it work and though he had tried to get Bridget to at least wear a helmet, she pestered him enough that he relented and allowed her to go without one.

He briefly tightened his grip around her, and she rested her head back against his shoulder. He admitted to himself he would not have been able to plant a kiss atop her head had he made her wear that helmet, but he would never give her the satisfaction of knowing. He grinned.

"It's just… perfect out here," she said with a happy sigh. They came out from under the shade of a copse of tall trees, and the sun lit her hair with gold. He could hardly help but agree.

They were able to make a perfect circuit of the property at that pace and still have plenty of time to freshen up before dinner. When they reached the stables, Malcolm was still there waiting for them. "I'll put her away," he said.

"Much appreciated," murmured Mark, swinging his leg down over and landing on the ground, then turning to assist Bridget from her perch.

"Have a nice jaunt, m'dear?" Malcolm asked of Bridget as she raised her arms up and arched back in a cat-like stretch.

"Lovely," she said with a dazzling smile; as his heart fluttered in a most unmanly way at the sight of it, it hit home once again the pleasantly devastating effect she still had on him. "We're off to wash the stable smell off before dinner. My mum and dad are coming over."

"So I heard… I'll be in in a few." Malcolm glanced off into the distance and smiled wistfully as he continued, "Love sitting out here on days like this, in the silence… can't see the sea, but the sky… it does remind me of the service." She reached and smoothed the shoulder of his shirt down in a genial gesture of affection, and he turned to bestow a smile on his daughter-in-law as well. That his parents loved his wife too was a blessing in itself.

"Well, enjoy the view," Mark said not unemotionally. "We'll see you at dinner." Mark slipped his arm around her shoulders as they headed back into the house. His leg muscles felt slightly rubbery yet were pleasantly zinging from sitting on horseback for so long; it was something he was out of practice doing.

"How are you feeling?" he asked of her as they headed for the staircase up to their room; each step felt heavier than the last.

"My arm's fine. You took good care of me today."

"And your legs?"

"Legs are fine. Why do you ask?"

He reminded himself that he'd been the one doing the driving, so to speak. "Shall we shower, then?" he asked, deflecting further discussion even though he already knew the answer.

"Oh yes." She hopped up the last step and bounded into the suite. He, on the other hand, reached around and rubbed his backside just over his tailbone.

"I found this and thought you'd want it."

"Found what?"

As Mark headed down towards dinner, the sound of voices from the front sitting room caught Mark's attention, and he paused to try to discern precisely to whom he was listening, aside from Bridget's voice, which he could pick out of any crowd. The other though, while female, he could not immediately place it. Very gentle, well moderated, almost sweet.

"Only found one of your favourite books from childhood, darling. It's a little worse for wear but…"

He could hardly believe it. Bridget was talking to her mother.

"Oh."

He eased himself forward to hear a little bit better, and he caught a glimpse of the two of them. He had never seen Bridget's mother look so… maternal. She handed what looked like a book over to Bridget, who accepted it with a puzzled look until she looked at the title on the spine.

"Oh," she said again, her face getting a little softer. "Thank you."

"Always nice to have a little reminder of what's important in life, I think," she said with a hint of melancholy in her voice, even as she smiled, "even though you hardly seem to need it."

"Yes." Bridget popped open the book, smiling nostalgically, as Pam glanced around herself, noticing Mark.

"Mark!" shrilled Pamela, smiling, reverting to the Pamela Jones he had come to know and love. "Stop lurking in doorways and come over here and give us a hug." She offered her cheek to him, which he was obliged to kiss.

"What's that you have there, darling?" he asked, glancing over to the pale blue book Bridget held in her hand.

"Oh. _The Velveteen Rabbit_," she said with a little blush.

_Great, more rabbits_, he thought.

"When Bridget was a little girl, we had to read her this story every night before bed, and tuck her in with her favourite stuffed—Oh my _godfathers_!" said Pam as her eyes lit on the clock. "Dinner time! Daddy's already with Malcolm and your Uncle Nick, Mark." With a bright smile she turned on the ball of her feet and headed towards the dining room.

After Pam had disappeared from sight, Bridget looked askance at Mark.

"What?" he said.

"That's a rather weird expression you have on your face, is all."

He laughed. He hadn't realised his thoughts about the normalcy of her mother had been that transparent.

"That's very sweet, by the way," he said to her.

"What is?"

"_Velveteen Rabbit_ every night before bed."

She chuckled. "I had forgotten all about it, honestly." She threaded her arm through his elbow, cradling the book to her chest. "So, after dinner tonight," she said as they went off towards the meal, "care to read me a story?"

Bridget kept the book close to her side all through dinner—which went about as well as a dinner with both sets of parents could be expected to go, discussions of the possibility of impending parenthood unavoidable thanks to Mrs Jones—and faithfully carried it upstairs with her after Pam and Colin had left. After they'd readied for bed and slipped beneath the covers, she extended her arm out to Mark, handing him the tatty old book.

"I thought you were joking."

She pursed her lips. He sighed, smiled, and accepted his fate, propping a pillow up against the headboard and sitting back against it, then cracking the book open as Bridget folded into his embrace. He read the little book from cover to cover, and at the end felt emotion threatening to close his throat, saw that his wife had tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. He set the book down and reached to switch off the bedside lamp. She turned into him, slipped her arms around him, kissed him on the collarbone, then closed her eyes. He enjoyed the silence, enjoyed watching her slip into slumber lit only by stray moonlight coming in through the window.

She surprised him though; he thought her fully asleep when she whispered, "I'd love you even if _all_ your fur wore off."

Gingerly he kissed the top of her head, even as his fingers absently reached to touch the crown of his own. In any case, it helped take his mind off of the preoccupation of what tomorrow would bring, allowing him to follow her into sleep.

* * *


	4. Part 4 of 4

**For Want of a Nail **

By S. Faith, © 2008

Words: 26,161 (Part 4: 5,759)

Rating: T / PG-13

Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring…

Disclaimer: They're still not my characters. They are still my words.

* * *

_Tuesday_

"So what are our plans for today?"

It was an innocent enough question, or so Bridget thought, but from the way both Mark and Nick looked at her, it was as if she'd asked when they were planning on tying tin cans to the tails of the neighbourhood cats. "Well…" Mark and his uncle looked to one another simultaneously, and then turned back to Bridget. "Nick and I have some business to attend to in about a half-hour's time, but aside from that…"

She felt her lower lip slip into a pout. "I didn't think you were working during our time off."

"I'm sorry, love. It's unavoidable, but it will hopefully be quick." He reached to where she sat beside him and combed the hair at her temple back lovingly.

Nick spoke up. "Before the two of you came down to join us for breakfast—excuse me, lunch—Elaine expressed some interest in going outside for wildflowers for the table in the foyer. Why not tell her you'll join her?"

Mollified, she smiled. It looked to be a lovely day out there, she enjoyed Elaine's company very much, and she needed to spend more time outside in the sunshine, anyway, because she was looking far too pallid.

"Then it's settled," said Nick matter-of-factly, setting his paper down on the table, and pushing his chair away to rise. "I've lingered over this table long enough. Have some things to get in order before our business, Mark. We can meet in the library."

Mark nodded, lowering his coffee cup from taking in the remains. "I'll meet you there." Nick departed the kitchen.

After finishing their meal, they parted ways, she for the park with Elaine, and Mark for his business with Nick. They strayed out into the untamed fields bordering the property and found some delightfully brilliant patches of flowers, which they carefully snipped and placed into the basket. Her suspicions on the loveliness of the day were not incorrect, and she turned her face to smile at the sun on more than one occasion. She caught Elaine watching Bridget each time she did so with a smirk on her face.

She must have looked at Elaine with a look of building confusion, and Elaine surprised her with a laugh. "I'm sorry, Bridget, for staring… but the more time we spend together, the more thankful I am to have you in our family."

The statement surprised her a little; Elaine had known her since she was a small girl, so it wasn't as if they were unacquainted before Bridget had begun seeing her son.

"You're good for him, you know," Elaine continued, plucking another bough of lavender from the field.

Bridget felt quite a smug little smile creep across her face. "I'm glad you think so, Elaine."

"It isn't a matter of thinking so. It's a matter of direct observation," she said, glancing up again from her crouched position, then stood again. "You're such a marked difference from—" She stopped. "Well. From any other woman he's been involved with."

"Especially _her_?" Bridget knew Elaine would know to whom she was referring.

Elaine turned slightly pink, a rarity for the woman. "Oh yes. Especially." They then both laughed. "I've never seen his protective instincts kick in like they do with you."

"That can be both a blessing and a curse," Bridget admitted. "Is it that obvious?"

"Oh, yes," she grinned. "Nick too. I never would have guessed that he would come to love any girlfriend or wife of Mark's like the daughter he never had—with the accompanying protective streak. I've never seen anything quite like it." Bridget felt the smugness bloom. She never thought she'd grow as close to Nick as she had, but she was glad for it. Elaine continued, "They were so hoping you'd come with me today. They had something to take care of and they thought it best if you were occupied with something of a more pleasant nature."

There was a prickling at the base of her neck. "Oh?" she asked, her voice more strained than she intended it to be. "Did they mention what it was?"

"They didn't, and curse me for opening my big mouth, but you're better off in the sunshine anyway. Come on, let's go over to that yellow patch and see what we can find."

Bridget was suddenly very interested in getting back to the house, but didn't want to rouse suspicion. They walked towards the patch Elaine indicated, letting her bow over the flowers and choose the nicest of the blooms.

"Those'll look so lovely in the foyer," said Bridget, smiling wanly. "Maybe we can start heading back towards the house, though. I'm a little tired."

"Oh, of course, Bridget." She rose to her feet. "You should have said something."

"I just did."

Elaine chuckled, patting her daughter-in-law on the shoulder.

As they came in through the patio door, Bridget could hear Nick's voice in the hallway in greeting, then another, unknown voice: "I'm so sorry I'm late…"

"Bridget, why don't we go down to the kitchen for some lemonade?" asked Elaine, a little too quickly, in Bridget's opinion.

As she brushed past Elaine and barreled down towards the front door, she drew in a deep breath just as her eyes met with a man she had not seen since she was in her early teens.

For his part, Theodore Llewellyn looked equally stunned. Aside from the passage of years (which had been very kind to him), and the short-cropped cut of his dark hair, he did not look very different than the Ted she remembered.

"Bridget? Bridget Jones?" he stammered. "What on _earth_ are you doing _here_?"

Mark had the decency to rein in the affront he must have been feeling, instead saying pleasantly, "Bridget's my _wife_."

Ted turned his brown eyes to Mark, surprised at this additional revelation. He looked truly shaken.

"So. Shall we convene this meeting?" Nick cut in brusquely. "Who is this client of yours?"

Ted looked to Nick, as if he had forgotten entirely what had brought him to the Darcys' home. "Certainly." Nick held out his hand to indicate Ted should proceed down the hall with him towards the library.

As the three men walked past her, Bridget said defiantly, "I'm coming too."

Ted looked back to Bridget. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought there was a glimmer of fear in his eyes. Mark and Nick glanced back as well, knowing better than to protest, then directed their gazes forward at Elaine, who stood there mutely at the end of the hallway. Bridget suspected it was not the kindest of looks, not even for a dear sister or mother.

Mark scrutinised Ted's every move from the moment he came into the house, and especially so after Bridget's appearance. Mark wasn't quite sure what Ted's surprised outburst meant—did Ted think she wasn't good enough for Mark? Did Ted think Mark wasn't good enough for her?—but it had nonetheless raised his hackles.

Mark also certainly did not want Bridget there, but upon seeing Ted's discombobulation at Bridget's appearance, he realised it might be advantageous to have Ted in such a state. They might be able to get more information out of him that way.

Before they could truly begin the meeting though, Bridget said, "Mark, Nick, may I speak to you for a minute?" She tilted her head towards the far side of the library. They followed her.

Once they had convened their little group, she turned her fury on the two men who had conspired to keep her in the dark. "'Lesson plan' indeed! I can't believe you were about to do this without me! And roping in your mother to do your dirty work? Unbelievable!"

"There was nothing about talking to Ted regarding his 'clients' that you needed to be involved with," explained Nick coolly in a calm, quiet voice Mark was sure could not be heard from where Ted was. "It was a conversation between lawyers, nothing more."

The same could not be said Bridget's voice, however; as she spoke again, Mark could see Ted's head swivel towards the group. "I am not a child, you know," she said. "You don't have to find me a babysitter! You don't have to protect me like I can't take care of myself!"

"Nick's right. You didn't need to be here. But since you are, will you stop acting like the child you say you're not and allow this to proceed?" Mark said crisply and quietly.

Bridget's mouth dropped open, then she closed it, looking somewhat chastened.

"All right," she said civilly. "Let's begin."

The three of them returned to where Ted was sitting, but as they sat, Ted stood and to their surprise, began to pace.

"Mr Llewellyn? Everything all right?" asked Nick, as he circled back towards where they'd seated themselves.

Ted stopped, looking between the three of them. "This isn't a legal tête-à-tête at all, is it?"

The resounding silence that followed told him all he needed to know; neither Bridget, Nick or Mark were very skilled liars.

"When did you realise?" asked Mark.

"I might ask the same of you," Ted said quietly, taking his seat again.

"What do you mean?"

"When I saw Bridget here, saw her insist on coming to the meeting, I thought you must have figured it out."

"The most we deduced at first," said Nick, taking the reins of the conversation in his usual imperious manner, "is that you were unloading a portion of your grandmother's possessions without her knowledge for reasons known only to yourself."

Bridget made what Mark recognised was a snort of disbelief, but she was right; she had, after all, been the one to get this whole thing started.

Nick continued, "But instead of selling them for money as one might expect with the theft of valuable items, you donated them to a charity auction with no expectation whatsoever of profit for yourself. Upon deeper digging the origin of the items was identified—as stolen property, not stolen from your grandmother, but from much earlier." Nick looked to Mark, then conceded a glance to Bridget as well. "Does that pretty much sum it up?"

"It does," Mark said. Bridget remained unexpectedly quiet.

Turning back to Ted, Nick said, "So if you would be so kind as to explain how your grandmother came to be in possession of a cache of items stolen by an infamous French thief, we're all ears."

Ted said nothing at first; Mark wondered if he would deny that they were in fact his grandmother's things at all, or revert back to the flimsy 'client' story. He began to speak in a very controlled manner. "You were right. It's true that they were my grandmother's, but I had no idea they were stolen. I noticed these things among my grandmother's possessions and wanted to donate them. I don't kid myself into believing she's going to be with us for much longer; as her only living family there's no reason why I shouldn't begin to divest her estate of items I have no particular interest in."

"Without her permission makes it theft."

"Oh, she gave her permission."

"So if I were to ask her," said Mark, "she'd say so?"

"I don't know what she'd say," said Ted, in a tight, impatient voice. "She can hardly remember what the year is or what she had for breakfast."

"What an astonishing coincidence that every item you chose to donate _with permission_ happened to be stolen!" Nick said with amusement. "Yes, that explains it all quite tidily; however, there is also the matter of your grandmother's late lamented nurse."

"A tragic accident," Ted said curtly, "which has no bearing on the management of my grandmother's estate."

"I think that it does," said Nick. "Did she figure out that your grandfather was a thief, that you were haring off with your grandmother's things to get rid of them before anyone else suspected? Couldn't very well have her tell anyone, could you? That would have done very bad things to your career."

At this Ted turned white as a sheet. "Now hold on. Are you suggesting—"

"Ted," cut in Bridget in a soft, caring voice, shooting Nick a vile look before looking back to her old boyfriend with compassion. "Enough of these silly lawyerly cat-and-mouse games. I believe in you, really. I only want to help. Just tell me the truth."

Ted sighed, his posture revealing the defeat he felt. He then opened his mouth and began to explain.

It all began when I was flipping through, of all things, a popular culture magazine I never would have ordinarily read, while waiting at the dentist's, of all places. I was glancing through an article about an upcoming sure-to-be blockbuster release about a heist, and an associated sidebar article about famous unsolved burglaries at home and abroad. Most prominently featured was this story about this string of burglaries in the south of France about fifty years ago, with photos of some of the stolen goods. This really got my attention, because I recognised everything in the photos. When I saw a more specific list attributed to this famous burglar, this 'Le Lapin', I realised I knew everything on that list, too. I started to feel a panic and dread the likes of which I have never felt.

Oh, the amount of time that had passed and the country of origin certainly made possession of the items clearly legally my family's at this point, but I knew my grandmother had never traveled outside of the UK, that everything she had had been gifted to her by her husband, and with the mysteriousness of his early life only one conclusion could be drawn: that my grandfather had been the famous burglar.

Anyone with hopes of ascending the bench knows that such a notorious familial connection is a death knell for those hopes. I knew I had to act, and quickly; my grandmother is old and ailing, and when she dies everything she owns will be cataloged as part of her estate, the bulk of which would go to auction. I could not take the chance that those items would draw undue attention to the connection, so I made plans to right the old wrong. Throughout the house I was able to locate everything I could from the list—the dentist's office was kind enough to let me keep the magazine—and my plan was to collect all of the stolen items and return them to their original families.

There was one small problem, though. While my grandmother would not notice my doing so, her nurse surely would, as she had been in my grandmother's company for quite some time and knew the contents of that house as well as I ever had.

And here is the God's-honest truth: I had been pondering how I could work around this obstacle when the tragic accident occurred. I was at the pub with some old school mates—your brother among them, Mr Darcy—when the call came in from my grandmother. She was terrified to even go and look at what had made such a racket. I raced home and found… well, the unfortunate sight of Nurse Paula lying at the bottom of the staircase. I rang 999 but I knew in my heart it was too late for her, and I was right.

I couldn't leave my grandmother without a nurse, so I arranged to employ another immediately. Before this new nurse began, though, I had to get those things out of there. I gathered up everything I'd previously located—the entire list in full, which relieved me, as I didn't want any surprises on down the road—and packed them into my car.

I had little difficulty locating the families for the majority of the items, and I simply anonymously shipped those things back to those families. A perusal of the local newspapers from the south of France told me I'd had success, as story after story of the miraculous return of items stolen by Le Lapin began to reappear.

However, there were some things I could not locate the rightful owners for, and rather than be saddled with the items I decided what better way to unload them than anonymously donate them to be auctioned for a charitable cause? And that was well on its way when the auction house called to say the auctions had been suspended, thanks no doubt to the call from Mr Wentworth.

There was silence as everyone seemed to take in what Ted had said, the gravity of everything that had occurred, but there was one unanswered question Bridget couldn't let lie.

"Ted," she said quietly, "how on earth did you get Agnes to take off that horrible old ring?"

Unexpectedly, Ted began to laugh, and truly, the tension penetrating the entire room dissolved away. "That was the last of the items I took away, unavoidably after the new nurse started. I had been telling her for months that the arthritis in her hand was being exacerbated by that bloody thing, the doctor and Nurse Paula had agreed… but she would not take it off. So I decided for the good of all to wait until after her tea and biscuits on a day when Mariah was off-duty. Wasn't easy, but I got it off with a bit of soap."

Bridget was horrified. "You didn't!"

"Sadly, as undignified as it was, I did. The thing is… she didn't even notice it was gone."

"Ted, that's awful! That was her engagement ring, her pride and joy…" She saw both Mark and Nick sit back on the sofa, almost literally rolling their eyes. "I don't know how you could do that to her. Or how the new nurse couldn't tell it was gone!"

"I didn't want to, believe me…" He looked penitent, but then grinned. "While Mariah has turned out to be an excellent, patient, good-natured nurse, she has the tendency to dismiss Agnes during her moments of lucidity, and flat out not even notice the smallest of changes, like the disappearance of Agnes' favourite ring."

"She did seem a bit of a dolt," said Bridget, to which they all began to chuckle, until Ted sighed again.

"I've worked so hard to do something right with my life, to right the wrongs I'd committed as a boy… and all I could think of was how that was all about to be destroyed by something that was beyond my control." He reached forward and took Bridget's hand. "It was your wake-up call that set me straight, Bridget. Your father was right to forbid you to see me." She glanced to Mark and instead of the slightly jealous look she expected to see, he looked as if he were gloating, undoubtedly at being right about her father. _Bastard._ She pursed her lips and scowled at him, before turning her eyes back to Ted. "Your shunning of me, your father's talk with my parents that got me sent away to school—it's something I will be forever grateful for. So thank you again."

She smiled, squeezing his hand before letting go. "And thank you for proving me right." She glanced smugly to her husband and his uncle. "Best as I can tell there hasn't been any crime committed, right? We can't prove you didn't actually have permission from Agnes."

"Well, except for his admission about the ring," offered Nick, smirking.

Bridget frowned until another idea took hold, brightening her face. "Oh! Give it back to her."

"What?" asked Ted.

"Give it back to her. The ring."

"She shouldn't be wearing a ring, anyway."

"Okay, fine, then don't put it back on her hand, but maybe hang it on a chain around her neck, or put it into safe keeping for her. You could say she had second thoughts about donating that one."

"As for the rest," said Mark, "we could confirm to the auction house that the items were in fact legally hers—rather, _your client's_—to donate."

"There's no reason for anyone to ever know the identity of your client," added Nick.

Bridget watched as the true meaning of Nick and Mark's words sunk in, and Ted looked as if he'd just been granted a new lease on life. She even saw tears welling in his eyes before he blinked them quickly away. "Thank you," Ted said, turning to each of his colleagues.

"If you'll excuse me," said Nick, "I'll make that call."

Once he had exited the room, Ted said, "You've all done more for me today than I can ever express gratitude for."

"Once we had the whole story, the choice was clear," said Mark matter-of-factly. Bridget's heart swelled with love for him. "You owe us nothing."

"Mr Darcy—Mark, if I may—I owe you all my very career. That isn't 'nothing'."

Mark nodded very slightly. "You're welcome, then, but if you must thank anyone, thank Bridget." He turned his eyes towards her; she couldn't tell if he was being serious or attempting to remind her that this whole palaver was essentially her fault, since she was the one who noticed the missing ring in the first place.

"It would seem I owe you yet again, Bridget," he said with a grin.

Within minutes Nick returned, and they all stood at his appearance, eager for the news. He quickly conveyed that the auctions, save the ring, were back up and running. Mark went to put his arm around her, but she pulled away. "All may be well that ends well," she said archly, addressing her husband, "but I'm still peeved that you tried to have this meeting without me."

Ted laughed. "Oh, I think that's perfectly reasonable that he wanted to protect you from me. After all, I might have been a killer…"

"Oh, great. Not you too," she sulked. With her defenses down, Mark encircled her shoulders with his arm, squeezing tight.

"Despite my initial reaction, it was wonderful to see you again," Ted said, sincerity in his eyes, "and I'm glad to see you're so happy."

She grinned, thinking of Agnes' continued insistence that Ted wasn't good enough for her, which she doubted very much but it was a theory she was unwilling to test. "Thanks. It was good to see you again too."

Ted grinned. "I know Mark from professional circles in town; maybe we'll see each other sooner rather than later."

"That'd be nice."

"Well. I should get going, get over to see my grandmother."

"Thanks for coming out here," said Nick.

Ted shook Nick's hand, then Mark's, then held out his hand for Bridget to shake. Instead she went to him and gave him a hug, her cast catching once or twice on the tweed of his jacket.

As he stepped back, he looked slightly concerned. "How did you break your arm, anyhow?"

"A traitorous shoe whilst running," she admitted, holding her arm up.

He looked down to her cast and started to laugh. "Nice drawings."

She was sure she turned bright pink as she quickly lowered her arm.

"And while I'm out here," Ted continued, "do your parents live in the same house?"

"Mine?" she asked stupidly; who else could he mean? "Yes, they do."

"Do you think your father would mind if I paid him a visit?"

Bridget didn't need to ask why. "I don't think he'd mind at all," she said, "just don't tell him you thought he was right all those years ago. He'll be insufferable if you do."

"But he _was_," said Mark and Nick in unison.

Mark at least had the good grace to appear immediately regretful at the look she gave him. To Nick she said, "You don't even know why he forbade me!"

Nick shrugged casually. "I know your father; I know _you_. And dear child, I'm certain it was justified."

"Speaking of insufferable…" Mark said, closing the bedroom door after them.

"Whatever do you mean?" she said in total innocence.

"You. Crowing all evening over dinner about not only being right about Ted, but about Agnes not willingly parting with that ring of hers." Mark folded his arms over his chest. "Need I remind you that you at first were very sure he was stealing to pay for a vice?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Curse you and your bloody memory."

He laughed, breaking his stance to embrace her. "Now can we have a pleasant, relaxing remainder-of-our-stay here in the country? No more thefts, possible murders, decades-old burglaries or notorious criminals?"

"Mmm, I suppose," she said, resting a cheek on his chest, returning the embrace.

"You suppose," he teased. "Can you at least promise me not to go looking for trouble?"

"I promise," she said, then giggled. "I can't help it if it tends to come looking for me, though."

Truer words were never spoken. "You aren't upset with my mother, are you?"

"Your mother?"

"For agreeing to babysit you today…?"

She laughed. "Of course not. I understand all too well that you can be hard to say no to."

He chuckled again and tightened his arms around her. He thought he heard her wince; she'd forsaken taking any pain pills in order to have wine with dinner, so he asked, "How's your arm?"

"It's fine," she said.

"Not hurting?"

"Not after that wine tonight," she said. "In fact…" He felt her hands slide down over the small of his back then into his back trouser pockets. "I'm feeling exceptionally fine." She curled her fingers. "And suggestible." She arched into him.

He raised his hands and threaded his fingers into her hair, gently pulling back to lift her face to his. "And I hear I'm hard to say no to," he said in a quiet, throaty voice.

If she had a reply, it was obliterated by the kiss he claimed her mouth with, then forgotten as his hands moved from her hair down over the light cotton dress covering her breasts, hips and bottom. He walked her backwards until they got to the bed, then lowered her down onto it, mindful of her arm. He then commenced to search for the edge of that dress with his fingers, running his palms up her smooth, bare legs as she sighed into his mouth.

Further progress was, however, interrupted by a firm but insistent knocking on the bedroom door.

She huffed out a breath as he dropped his forehead to touch her chin. This suite was supposed to afford them privacy. "Yes?" he barked.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but Nick said to come up, said you'd only just retired for the night. I need to speak to Bridget, if you please."

Bridget stiffened beneath him. "Jesus. _Dad. _Again."

One of two things were going to happen. Mark was going to have words with Nick, who knew full well what 'retiring for the evening' meant for them because he never ceased to let them forget it. If this pattern continued, Mark was also going to develop an aversion complex to making love to his own wife. He'd rather die first.

"Just a moment, Dad," called Bridget, reaching for the edge of her dress and pushing down as she wriggled to stand to her feet. She implored with her eyes for him to get to his feet and right his mussed shirt, the tail of which had been yanked up out of his trousers, the first few buttons of which she had managed to undo.

"I'll be in the loo," he said under his breath, closing the door behind him.

He heard her open the door, heard her greet her father, but the specific words they exchanged were too low to be made out except for an "I'm sorry." Mark furrowed his brow. The low murmurs continued for a few minutes more until he heard the bedroom door close again, then the bathroom door opened, revealing a teary Bridget.

He immediately went to her. "Darling, what's the matter?"

"Bloody Ted," she said through gritted teeth; she was upset, not sad. "Wish now I _had_ turned him in."

"What? Why?"

Her blue eyes met with his own. "Ted and my dad went for dinner at the pub and Ted let it slip to my dad I didn't stop seeing him for some time after I'd been forbidden to. Now my dad is disappointed in me all over again."

He knew how she felt about disappointing the people who loved her; he took her into his arms. "Oh, my love, I'm sure he's not, not really, not past the initial surprise. That was a long time ago, and it must mean something that you didn't keep seeing him."

"He didn't have to come all the way over here, though."

"It was on the way, I'm sure, and he doesn't have a mobile, does he?" He patted her hair down in consolation. "I'm sure that Ted didn't do it on purpose."

She sighed. "I know."

"And your father wasn't angry, was he?"

"No. And he accepted my apology with a smile, said something about knowing I was younger and sillier then."

He laughed. "'Younger' I'll grant. I'd have to argue the 'sillier' point."

As if to prove him right, she stuck out her tongue at him, then smiled.

"I kind of wish I'd known you then," she said, drawing her hands up to his shirt.

He thought of himself as a eighteen-year-old and shuddered mentally: gawky underdeveloped limbs, bad haircut, no self-confidence to speak of. "I have my doubts you would have spoken to me."

"Why would you say that?"

"Ask my mother for the photos I reluctantly allowed at eighteen and you'll see."

She giggled. "In that case, _you_ would not have spoken to _me_. I had horrid plastic spectacles, thick glass lenses, orthodontics, and badly-styled hair… though to my credit I _was_ very skinny."

His hands found her hips, then slowly roamed over her backside. "You know my feelings on the subject of your figure." He then nuzzled into her hair, planting a kiss along her hairline. "I don't want to think of you overly skinny. The thought of this lovely bottom of yours that much diminished offends my sensibilities."

She laughed again, slipping her arms around his neck. "I guess we met when we were meant to meet."

"Hm." He was studiously working on her earlobe now.

"Though it might have been nicer to meet a _little_ sooner, to avoid so much fuckwittage," she rattled on. "You could have done without your cruel first wife and I certainly could have done without—"

"Bridget?" he interrupted.

"Yes, Mark?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?"

Once again he prevented her from answering.

_Epilogue_

From the moment Mark entered the home he shared with his wife, she knew good news was not forthcoming. His face was long and he looked very troubled. She stopped what she was doing immediately.

"Who died?" she said jokingly.

He looked down, clearing his throat. She felt faint.

"Oh my God. Someone actually _died_?"

He nodded. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but… I saw Ted Llewellyn today. His grandmother passed away this past Sunday."

She felt tears spring to her eyes as she pursed her lips tight, willing her chin not to quiver.

"I'm sorry, darling. I know you were fond of her."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet. He dropped his attaché onto a nearby chair and took her into his arms at once.

"If you'd like we can go to Grafton Underwood to her service. It's tomorrow morning."

She nodded again, then whispered, "I'd like that."

She felt him place a kiss into her hair.

He stood and consoled her in silence for a few more minutes before she stood away, wiping the tears that had spilled from her eyes. "I know she was old, and I knew this was coming, but…" she began with a sniff of her nose.

"I know. It's never easy even when you're prepared intellectually for it," he said. "However, I have something from her for you." She blinked in confusion, so he elaborated: "Actually, from Ted. He said she told him she wanted you to have this."

She looked at him worriedly. "What, from beyond the grave?"

He chuckled. "No, before she passed on. He tried to return this to her but she insisted he give this to you, instead."

"Return—?" The realisation of what he must have meant hit her all at once. "Oh God, it's not…"

He reached into his attaché and pulled out a small bag. Nestled in the bag was a nondescript box, which she opened to reveal exactly what she suspected she'd find:

The fugliest ring ever to exist.

She couldn't help it: she smiled, then chuckled, then laughed outright, clutching the ring to her chest then slipping it on to the smallest finger of her left hand, the only finger it would fit on. Mark looked at her in a most alarmed manner, asking without words if she was all right. "It's fine… _I'm_ fine. It's just that she did say I was always her favourite of Theodore's girls. Maybe she forgot I'm already married."

At that Mark began to laugh. "As long as he doesn't think of your accepting it as a promise of any sort," Mark joked.

"Nah," she replied. "Besides, nothing could persuade me to replace your ring with this one."

"Not even after I'm gone?"

She laughed, thinking back to the embarrassment of her loud, half-drunken declaration in front of his mother about a shag-mate. "Not even then."

"Are you sure? He's a rather handsome fellow, that Ted," Mark said, quite to her surprise.

"Not handsome enough to tempt me," she teased, kissing him, sliding her cast-free arms about his neck, then drawing her hands over his hair and his face.

"Ow," he said as he broke away suddenly, grabbing her left hand and turning it palm up.

"See? I told you the ring was scratchy."

"I could see why you'd remember that." He slipped it from her hand and palmed it. "I'm going to put this in your jewelry box, then I'm going to pack some things for us, call my parents to make up the big room and expect two more for dinner."

"They won't mind?"

He kissed her deeply, then said softly, "They never mind."

She grinned. "And then?" she prompted.

Softly he said, "Maybe a story before bed."

_The end._

* * *

Notes:

As the nursery rhyme goes:  
_For want of a nail the shoe was lost.  
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.  
For want of a horse the rider was lost.  
For want of a rider the battle was lost.  
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.  
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail._


End file.
